Didn’t they just up the conscripts to 30 now from like 25 or 26? Basically they’re running out of able bodies. Russia thinks more bodies mean more ground but it’s not WWI and that no longer works.
Honestly, I am worried that Russia has already planned to either blow Zaphorzhiza to smithereens, set off a nuke somewhere in Ukraine, or both; that Ukraine and NATO both know it and NATO countries are too cowardly to act, and so Ukraine feels they need to overthrow Putin’s regime themselves before WW3 really kicks off… and if any of what I just said is right, it almost certainly will if they don’t.
Russia running out of victims to throw in the meat grinder makes it all the more possible, and that should worry everyone.
There were reports a month ago stating Russian troops rigged some of the cooling ponds inside the plant with explosives, so… yeah. The pro-Russia concern trolls in here trying to drum this drone attack up as an excuse to undermine Ukraine when they don’t want anyone to acknowledge that Putin’s actions on the nuclear front literally justify doing anything, up to and including the sane atrocities he inflicted on Ukraine if not more, simply to get rid of him and prevent a nuclear disaster.
It’s like those trolls simply do not get it’s not just about Ukraine but quite literally life on the Earth.
I am worried that Russia has already planned to either blow Zaphorzhiza to smithereens, set off a nuke somewhere in Ukraine, or both; that Ukraine and NATO both know it and NATO countries are too cowardly to act
You are worried about conspiracy in your own head?
if Russia throws nukes in Ukraine the war in Ukraine will end in a month. All of Europe will be in Ukraine and kill anything moving with a Z on it in weeks. There’s no WWIII. There’s a Ukraine war and it will go much worse for russia if they nuke even an empty field.
Sounds like a good reason for Ukraine to invade Moscow and drag Putin to the Hague then.
Actually I worry this is all a moot point anyway because the Russians really did rig the Zaphorzhiza plant to blow, meaning a nuclear conflict is probably going to be an inevitable conclusion to the whole thing regardless.
Can you spend at least a minute researching before making claims like that? Russia has like what, 300k soldiers on the field right now? There are 20 million people eligible for service. The whole reason Russia is not using those is that the majority of them are against war and would mutiny when called to it. But if Ukraine keeps poking, they might turn them against themselves.
Make no mistake, Ukraine cannot possibly “win” this war, e.g. conquer Moscow, without foreign military intervention. Not with HIMARS nor with F16’s, nor with superior guns and training. They’re just *severely *outnumbered. Oh, and by the way, Russia has nukes, which is a bit of a problem. The best they can hope for is to push Russians back to 2014 borders after Crimean annexation, but not a bit more.
Raw numbers do not a fighting force make. You said it yourself “the majority of them are against war and would mutiny when called to it”. If Russia had the manpower to field 10x the troops they have now, they wouldn’t have to keep loosening the restrictions on conscripts.
Who the fuck ever said anything about conquering Moscow? Ukraine winning means making Putin stop being a cunt and trying to take over Kiev.
How is the ability to field troops related to the ability to field troops? Really? Having X million people eligible to serve doesn’t matter if none of them are willing to go die in another country (remember your comment about a mutiny?); and right now Russia is having trouble recruiting for Putin’s little adventure.
“Take the war to Russian soil” doesn’t mean conquer Moscow. For fuck’s sake, that has never been Zelenzky’s goal and you know it.
Because it’s not about the ability to field troops. They’ve increased the age of conscription to 30 years, but you don’t send conscripts to war, you send ones who completed the year-long service, and the age limit for those was always 50 years. We won’t see any new conscripts under this law for at least 2 years. But there won’t be that much of them really, because this change was designed to catch those who are otherwise healthy but avoided service altogether by getting a PhD.
“Take the war to Russian soil” doesn’t mean conquer Moscow. For fuck’s sake, that has never been Zelenzky’s goal and you know it
Then what *does *it mean? Why would you go to Russia if not for returning the attack? Why would you fly drones all the way to Moscow?
It would increase the amount of soldiers on the battlefield about ten times
Sure sounds like it’s about getting troops to the field.
It means exactly what this was, drone attacks on strategic targets to disrupt the Russian war machine. Only one side in this war is trying to invade a neighboring country. If you can’t even admit that, I really question your motivation here.
Ah, the little known “true flag operation”. Very sophisticated psyop technique wherein you attack a country you are already at war with, and then admit it. Often has a powerful psychological effect.
The problem with the RFA source is the CIA funding, not that it’s in English. It’s pretty disingenuous to try to imply Newizu is pro-Putin or anti-imperialist, or anti-west or anything else that would qualify as a separate bias or agenda.
I don’t think they’re implying anything like that? A Russian source talking about a bad thing Russia did is generally more reliable than a CIA source saying the same thing, since there’s less incentive to make stuff up.
A shitty source not being the absolute worst source doesn’t make it any less shitty than it is. If your only options for news are US government propaganda or Russian government propaganda, the only valid choice is to stop following the news.
It literally isn’t. RFE is definitely a US propaganda platform, but it objectively has nothing to do with the CIA these days. But you should probably check under your bed one more time just to make sure.
RFE also “objectively” had nothing to do with the CIA for nearly 20 years after it was created, at which point it turned out the CIA had been funding it all along. But now we know they’ve stopped because they said they did, and anyone suggesting that they’re not editorially independent is a paranoid loon, just as they would’ve been in the 50’s and 60’s.
Some of us don’t believe that the people whose job it is to lie stopped lying because they said they did. Suggesting that the CIA is still doing things that they did regularly and successfully kept hidden in the past is not a conspiracy theory.
I searched for her name and despite the RFE article being a week old, no other more credible outlets have picked up on it. Maybe other outlets are using a different romanization of her name but this is certainly a red flag.
I hope that bodyguard is well hidden! This guy must have REALLY HATED working for Putin if he was willing to flee and risk being murdered in retaliation.
I was a little confused by the smile too, assuming she was no older than 30. Losing 6 years of your youth seems harder than 6 years in your 50s. Although it depends on the conditions she’s kept in.
If you go into the article, there is a little caption in the corner of the image that says “Social Media”. So I guess this picture was from before her arrest?
If they can’t take Ukraine with the US providing the bare minimum amount of aid the Republicans will allow, I’m curious what they think they can accomplish against our best efforts in an actual war.
I’m not curious at all. Let’s just stop this shit already.
How unlikley is it they’ve held back at minimum one airplane and a big ass bomb (atomic, nuclear, etc, I have no idea) for the USA? Best effort or not, if one thing gets through some people are fucked. Some is more then none and that’s too much.
On the other hand the United States has been politically gridlocked for the last 15 years because of Russian puppets. For some of us that’s been as good as a death sentence.
Imagine Trump being in office and him basically kneecapping any response to Russian aggression in Europe. He could bring the US to its knees by trying to play wannabe dictator and tying us up dealing with all the civil unrest that will follow from that. Meanwhile, Europe is left to its own devices to try to handle Russia on its own (with Trump even likely providing intelligence to Russia or even withholding aid to Europe, as he’s already promised to do). All signs are kind of pointing to this eventuality if Trump gets elected, and Republicans are too dumb to understand it (or they don’t care, because “F* Europe”, right?).
Yeah, let’s see… So far Ukraine was able to take down planes deep into Russia’s territory, bomb Moscow, sink flagship of the Russian Navy, disable the most protected bridge in the country and bomb HQ of Black Sea fleet. All that with spare European weapons and toys. You really think that Europe would need US help to fight Russia? This war has proven that Russian army is in terrible state. Their weapons are shit and commanders are incompetent. They are struggling with a army 1/5th their size. Russia is once again back to their WWI strategy of sacrificing thousands after thousands of soldiers. At this point one has to be delusional to think Russia could fight Europe.
War isn’t won by forces alone, you also need the economy, morale and political wherewithal to endure and survive the destruction.
Neither EU country could stomach a prolonged war, possibly only the Baltics and Finland are at all prepared for a couple years of war, and won’t be able to supply their troops for that long without US support.
Case in point, Europe is giving about half of the total aid for Ukraine, but almost none of the armaments even though it would be far more preferable for relations, training, logistics, and defence. Part of it is that they don’t keep stockpiles, part is that they don’t have the industry to replace ammunition, neither of which bodes well for a prolonged conflict.
I think Putin knows that he can get off five or six nukes on strategic cities to destabilize Europe and America without much additional repercussion, assuming it is already at war with the West.
The West cannot nuke Russia back because their major retaliatory strike package is automatic, under dead hand control, and would surely cause global nuclear winter.
Or, maybe the West retaliated and nukes some Russian cities without triggering the dead hand. Putin absolutely doesn’t give a shit if tens of millions of Russian civilians die. It literally will not matter to him in any sense. He will still be a billionaire oligarch living in obscene luxury and will still remain president as a long as he desires.
Your best effort? Nuclear armageddon. Both europe and russia will be wiped off of world map. US might be able to survive but some towns will be Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That is with your best effort, so save your fucking bullshit.
Adding “jailing pacifists for speaking out” to the things dronies openly support, along with forcing others to fight when they’re not willing to, poisoning civilians with generations of birth defects, and giving cluster bombs to Nazis.
No, we want Ukraine to stop trying to ethnically cleanse the Donbas and give the people there self determination. And we want the Ukrainian government to stop forcibly conscripting people to go die needlessly on the front in a clearly losing war. We want NATO to stop enabling all of that (it literally wouldn’t be happening if they weren’t demanding that it continue). That’s what it is to be a peace activist. And I’m fairly sure I can speak for all of us, we are not pacifists, lol. But we are advocates for peace and the end to the horrible and needless loss of life.
Nice try to completely twist reality, and completely misrepresent us, as you war mongering dronies always do.
Edit: We actually give a shit about all the Ukrainian people being thrown into a fucking meat grinder. We care about their lives. The people who just say “more weapons to Ukraine!” do not give a shit about the lives of the people there. They’re happy to just let the war keep dragging on until the last capable Ukrainian is dead. An example of how WE feel about the tragedy of the situation: hexbear.net/post/503747 (hexbear link to a lemmygrad news post)
Edit: We actually give a shit about all the Ukrainian people being thrown into a fucking meat grinder. We care about their lives. The people who just say “more weapons to Ukraine!” do not give a shit about the lives of the people there. They’re happy to just let the war keep dragging on until the last capable Ukrainian is dead. An example of how WE feel about the tragedy of the situation: hexbear.net/post/503747 (hexbear link to a lemmygrad news post)
So be fucking outraged then that Russia started, and is continuing this war. They’re the ones killing Ukrainians in their homeland.
A comment from that link:
Omg, it’s a full on genocide of Ukrainian people. Just damm the Western libs… Fuck this planet.
Russia is committing genocide. They’ve been raping and killing civilians since the start, this is where your anger and energy needs to be. Imagine being outraged at the nation defending itself from genocide, and those countries that are sending the tools that they’re being asked for to help defend themselves.
Gaddafi’s troops are committing rape to children en masse, they have issued viagra to mass rape people since the start. this is where your anger and energy need to be. Imagine being outraged at the nation defending itself from mass rape, and those countries that are sending the tools that they’re being asked for to help defend themselves.
Here is the UN mandate to intervene in Lybia: …wikipedia.org/…/United_Nations_Security_Council_… a resolution drafted by Tunisia and supported by the African Union, the Arab League and allowed by all of the UNSC.
Where is russia’s UN mandate to annex Crimea and to later bomb Kiev? Did they even try?
honestly i appreciate you attempting to engage this - truthfully, i find the entire premise of appealing to morality in a war fruitless, and my intentions in making the statement above was to imitate that this is a effect that has been repeated for many generations (whether or not it is true).
ultimately people do things to advance their own goals & stamp out contradictions, not on the basis of morality.
this attempt to say this is moral and that isn’t could go on until the next generation of soldiers is born - and it would be pointless because the narrative accepted will often be the media machine with the biggest wallet until some massive contradiction.
ultimately what are your goals here, what are the perspective of the shoes of the russians and the ukrainians, what is the context etc.
perhaps it’s as simply resolved as the issue of the jupiter missles, or perhaps peace was never going to be a option(from your stance of the “russian imperialists” or my stance that the American west desire to remain a world power).
truthfully i am of the opinion the americans seeks to remain a world power [hence the 800 military bases around the world vs the russians 21], and will take advantage of any conflict to pose as the morally high ground in a “just war”, or proxy war in this case.
i don’t think peace was ever an option, russia most likely sees ukraine as a staging ground for nato as it did in operation Barbarossa, or napoleon, or seeks minerals, or believes the new government is too nationalist for their own taste (why does it have to be one point?)
all that matters is that is a war to extinguish contradictions that pose existential threats, another form of competition for capital.
I did not appeal to morality, I stated the fact that the decision to helping the rebels in Lybia took into account every regional player given what we knew at the time. And even in that case it was counterproductive in hindsight.
Following international law is not about morality, it’s about being able to vaguely know what you can count on and possible consequences when you perform a military calculation or a geopolitical move.
If everyone just takes what they can get away with regardless of others’ interests, the future will just be a series of Iraq and Ukraine wars all over the world, particularly in Africa, Europe and Asia.
I did not appeal to morality, I stated the fact that the decision to helping the rebels in Lybia took into account every regional player given what we knew at the time. And even in that case it was counterproductive in hindsight.
i acknowledge this, i have no desire to struggle for the trough.
Following international law is not about morality, it’s about being able to vaguely know what you can count on and possible consequences when you perform a military calculation or a geopolitical move.
to follow law and order for the sake of law and order, you will find these rules tend to favour the well established, powerful and often rich governments. just like it once was deemed that to attack kings was deem sinful for they conversed with god. the rich and powerful will write laws that benefit them, while maneuvering around them with ease to cripple/destroy their enemies/threats.
the material reality on ground matters immensely, and we the west seek to capitalize on this opportunity (in the ukraine) to liquidate our enemies where ever, whenever possible.
If everyone just takes what they can get away with regardless of others’ interests, the future will just be a series of Iraq and Ukraine wars all over the world, particularly in Africa, Europe and Asia.
my friend, we will live to see many more wars, there are contradictions grander than this, (see ipcc report) - and i assure you, we will be portrayed as the good guys, with hollywood movies on how our soldiers going overseas to do these wars made us feel sad.
The Lybian war was started on lies and shattered the country so I don’t care if it was “legal”. Diplomatic routes in Ukraine were tried (e.g. the Minsk Agreements) but broken by Kiev. The Crimean people overwhelmingly supported the annexation.
Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t, once you’ve invaded a territory it’s hard to assess, but it’s a fact that they violated Ukraine’s borders to add to their territory twice now.
International law matters here, because invading parts of other countries leads us back to 1914: you sacrifice the peasantry and treasury, but the “empire” is rewarded with territory gains for the history books, this influences military calculus so that wars become more likely if the trend catches on.
You are not free to speak your mind in russia and the government has not earned a reputation for telling the truth at any point since 2014.
Libya today is a haven for islamic terrorism and slaver markets. Regardless of the “legality” of the NATO (mostly french and US led) intervention, it threw the entire region in outright chaos, and was enormously damaging to the working class of Lybia, but also of the entire fucking Sahel.
Yea, in hindsight it would have been better to just let him crack down on the population to keep stability in the region, but with the information we had at the time, most African and Arab neighbours agreed that helping the rebels with a no-fly zond would be better than not to, since the civil war was going to start anyway. You don’t care about legality, but that is not the point. The point is that this was not unilateral, like Iraq, and even then military interventions can go terribly wrong.
You realize more fighting and more weapons doesn’t magicly win territory? It’s war, to continue fighting means killing more people and destroying more lives. The fighting needs to stop as soon as possible, one way or another or the whole country will end up like Bakmuht.
So your answer is to let an aggressor nation just happily steamroll through any country it pleases? Because down to this logic, any nation that decides to defend their homeland just cause needless bloodshed. No fighting = no deaths, but the aggressor can literally just waltz in and take whatever it wants.
The fighting needs to stop as soon as possible
Agreed. Every effort needs to make sure Russia leaves Ukraine ASAP. Ideally without any more deaths. But unfortunately as long as Russia continues this pointless act of imperialism, then the death toll will rise.
So your answer is to keep the meatgrinder running for as long as possible? Sure, countless Ukrainians and Russians are dying, but at least the lines on the map don’t change.
If Ukraine wants to remain a sovereign nation and retain its land, then what alternative does it have? I don’t think any nation in their right mind would happily let an invader just attack without putting up a defence.
Russia themselves threw millions of men into the meat grinder to defeat the Nazis and so did the allies. So did the north Vietnamese against the US. It’s tragic, but it’s it’s unfortunately the reality when there’s bad actors that invade other nations.
You think nazis are in this case the good actors because the genocide they were busy with got interrupted by an invader invited by the people you wanted killed off to protect them?
And you just keep using thought terminating cliches like “everything true but also bad is enemy propaganda” to prevent yourself from thinking about what holiday Ukraine made January first.
As just a single flippant example to both call you an idiot and say ‘fuck you’ for making me bother making a self evident case.
Defending Ukraine in this war is exactly equal to supporting the genocide they were committing to provoke it.
No the real answer is these people somehow think their constant egging on escalation instead of some sort of diplomatic resolution, won’t eventually lead inevitably to the war escaping its proxy status and evolve into a REAL inter-imperialist direct confrontation with all of what it implies (it implies nukes)
So your answer is to let an aggressor nation just happily steamroll through any country it pleases?
You were happy enough to let Ukraine commit genocide until an ‘aggressor’ stopped it
Every effort needs to make sure Russia leaves Ukraine ASAP
So enlist. They’re out of warm bodies to throw at minefields and artillery kill zones. Instead of being so bloodthirsty with other people’s lives, put yours at risk.
Why do you deserve to live if you want other people to die for your cause? Go die for your own cause. Go die with the rest of your nazi comrades.
You were happy enough to let Ukraine commit genocide until an ‘aggressor’ stopped it
No? Let’s not forget that Russia massively exaggerated the numbers this, whilst simultaneously also committing atrocities themselves, and then severely ramped it up in the invasion. It hasn’t stopped, it’s got significantly worse.
Why don’t you go to Putin and ask him to pull out of Ukraine? Or go protest the war in Russia and build momentum to get the population to protest?
Go die with the rest of your nazi comrades.
Of course, you see all Ukrainians as Nazis. Explains why you’re so eager for Ukraine to roll over so Russia can come in take over the country and eradicate Ukraine and it’s culture.
Let’s not forget that Russia massively exaggerated the numbers
“we were only doing a little genocide”
whilst
cringe
and then severely ramped it up in the invasion
Not after the invasion. After Ukraine reacted to its situation turning hopeless by turning to terrorist tactics like bombing civilian bridges during rush hour.
Why don’t you go to Putin and ask him to pull out of Ukraine?
Because unlike you I don’t wish for the genocide to continue until it’s successful.
Of course, you see all Ukrainians as Nazis.
No. Just the ones who took power in 2014 and have since made it illegal to oppose them politically while making national holidays out of WW2 nazi heroes. The ones you keep photographing with their nazi tattoos because you somehow can’t find all the good Ukrainians who aren’t sporting them.
It’s a nazi country. It’s run by and run for nazis. You’re defending them knowing this full well. You’re covering for them. That’s why I call them your comrades. You’re a nazi by action.
Explains why you’re so eager for Ukraine to roll over so Russia can come in take over the country and eradicate Ukraine and it’s culture.
Typical nazi rhetoric: either you let us purge anyone not like us or you’re doing oppressing us.
To say nothing of how fucking ignorant you are of the entire geopolitics around the war to say something so fucking stupid as to not even know why Russia is fighting. Shut the fuck up if you don’t know anything. Sophomoric linguistic punch-ups like ‘whilst’ do absolutely fucking nothing to mask the fact that you’re talking out of your ass.
The president himself is Jewish, with something like 8 million Jews living in Ukraine. How much of the far right make up the Ukrainian parliament?
Stepan Bandera
Yeah fair enough, it’s not great to be celebrating this guy. I suspect this is more about a big “fuck you” to the Soviet Union rather than celebrating his collaboration with the Nazis, given what happened to Ukraine in the 30’s. To them he symbolises the fight for independence from Russia.
They’ve been raping and killing civilians since the start
You know this is not genocide, right?
You are describing war crimes. War crimes are horrible. Two rapes are two rapes too many. Every side in every war does them, which is a major reason war is so horrific. Genocide is much more than a series of war crimes, though. To believe otherwise is to declare all sides in all wars genocidal, rendering the word meaningless.
They’re kidnapping Ukrainian children and trying to “re-educate” them, and given Russian soldiers have had specific orders to “kill everyone” from commanders, and video evidence of random civilians being targeted and killed, I can’t really think what else is could be? Seems like they’re trying to eradicate the Ukrainian people and their culture.
They’re kidnapping Ukrainian children and trying to “re-educate” them
Let’s start with a source for this one. I’ve seen nothing akin to the indigenous boarding schools ran by the U.S. and Canada in actual campaigns to destroy a people’s collective identity. What I have seen are reports of children whose parents are not available/alive to take care of them (a fact of any war) and Russia putting them in school and/or up for adoption (something any state would do).
We meet just a few days before the international criminal court issued warrants for the arrest of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights, for directly supervising the atrocity of kidnapping Ukrainian children for “adoption” and “re-education” in Russia.
I mean it’s a pretty well known enough to trigger an international arrest warrant.
I’ve seen nothing akin to the indigenous boarding schools ran by the U.S. and Canada in actual campaigns to destroy a people’s collective identity.
Classic hexbear whataboutism response. Like I’m going to sit here and defend the horrendous crimes that happened in those boarding schools. Both things are wrong. You can be critical of Russia my man, you don’t need to defend it so aggressively.
Your linked articles makes literally no fact-claims outside of what my comrade there said. It just ignored whatever reasons Russia have and assumed the worst or let you imagine/fill in the gaps. Edit: added “no” because it was missing
Your comrade just made an assumption that the Russians are merely looking after children who have lost their parents, as if they’re playing the generous role of social services.
From the linked article:
In February, a report from Yale University found that since the start of the war, children as young as four months living in occupied areas had been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in annexed Crimea and Siberia, for “pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education”.
In at least two of the camps, the children’s return date was delayed by weeks, while at two other camps, the return of some children was postponed indefinitely.
Videos published from the camps by the occupying regional authorities show children singing the Russian national anthem and carrying the Russian flag. In separate videos, teachers talk about the need to correct their understanding of Russian and Soviet history.
Simmons said: “All of it adds up to a story which is utterly horrendous. It’s horrendous on every conceivable level.
Still literally none of that goes against what was said. There’s s war, and when that happens and territory changes hands, there’s always this problem (or the military let’s the children just run around with parents gone and get themselves hurt). It’s not unique and it’s not something you have a better idea for. Its why we stand for bringing and end to wars generally while you stand for ending Russia (where the next war will just come at the next eastern border where this whole cycle will repeat). Can you not see how areas which have become Russian through referendum will have issues of parents being gone and wanting children back, but Russia can’t just send em randomly across a border. They’ve gotta have checks for the parenthood and that the children are not also claimed by another parent that stayed (a case which often happens with divorces, and complicates it). All while trying to work with a government that very obviously is not willing to work with you. All the articles fit this narrative also, just with spin on top using specific wording and leaving out details.
International law is a joke. If you knew anything about it you wouldn’t be screeching “whataboutism!” at even the most obvious of comparisons, because you’d know that a cornerstone of what passes as International law is looking at practices of other countries.
But let’s see what your article says:
Kherson was liberated in November after eight months of occupation, but is pounded every day and night by Russian artillery… A report last October by Yale University Human Rights Lab, citing a vast range of open sources in Russia and Ukraine, traces many reasons for their abduction: including so-called “evacuation” from state institutions such as that at Kherson
This article documents that (when it was written) Kherson was still an active war zone, but nevertheless adds scare quotes to “evacuation,” as if there is no need to evacuate children from a war zone and this is all a Russian pretense. So early on we can see that no Russian explanation will be deemed credible, even when the explanation Russia gives (e.g., evacuation) is documented by the author himself.
“Staff hoped for three months that our army would somehow evacuate them,” Sagaydak continues, “but when it became apparent this would not happen, we made arrangements for those with living relatives
Even Ukranians recognize the need for evacuating children, but nope, it’s an evil plot when Russia does it! Note also that the immediate evidence we have here – an in-person interview with a Ukranian working with kids, not a second- or third-hand story – mentions exactly what I said: kids orphaned by the war who need to go somewhere, not Russians snatching kids from their parents.
“Another woman here, aged only 30, took five, which could not possibly have been hers, so we made up a legend that she was helping her pregnant sister while she gave birth. We had to invent all the medical records, and worried when a driver turned up who was not the one we had planned. But when they were stopped, and the untrustworthy driver even told the true story, the kids managed to outwit the occupying soldiers.”
What is more believable: Russians are trying to snatch any kid they can lay their hands on, for some reason the Ukrainians subjected to this believe fake medical records will prevent this, a driver tells them “hey here’s five kids with fake documents,” and the kids outwit a bunch of soldiers with some unexplained cunning? Or is it more likely that Russians consider kids in a war zone basically a nuisance, and aren’t particularly invested if someone is trying to evacuate them?
But then, on 15 July, the Russians returned, with 15 more children to be cared for
So the Russians are stealing children by… taking them to a Ukranian orphanage?
I mean, just look this shit up? There’s tonnes of articles, accounts from mothers trying to get their children back, UN reports on it, loads. Stop pretending like this isn’t happening, it’s absolutely ridiculous. Feels like I’m witnessing some kind of Russian information warfare in action here.
You know this is happening yet you’re coming out in defence of Russia.
Lmao you can’t even imagine how someone could possibly disagree with the liberal narrative – even after someone goes line by line through a salacious article and highlights bias and inconsistencies.
Genocide is a crime. If you claim a crime occurred you have to provide evidence. What you are doing is equivalent to accusing someone of murder, then standing up in front of the judge and shouting “we all know he did it, just go out and find the evidence yourself, what, are you some kind of Russian plant for saying I need a witness???” Just a laughable response.
So be fucking outraged then that Russia started and is continuing this war
its so weird that the day the tanks rolled over the border of Ukraine history magically just began, there was no material reality prior to this event, or any geopolitical events of consequence we could connect to this outcome, certainly none that had to do with openly threatening to expand a hostile military alliance with supersonic and nuclear missiles 5 minutes from the capital city of Moscow
i wonder if the US has ever done the exact same thing in the name of national security and what the NATO heads said about it then
every pro NATO take is certified baby brain shit that demonstrates nothing but a lack of understanding of material reality, history, geopolitics, on top of an absolute disregard for human life, gross hypocrisy and a level of false outrage that is always directly proportional to how loudly they’re calling to escalate bloodshed
Russia is committing genocide. “So do the humanitarian thing and send depleted uranium shells to this warzone. Slava Ukraini!!!”
RUSSIA BEST!!! RUSSIA THE PEACEKEEPERS!!! THE HUMANITARIANS! DEFEND RUSSIA AT ALL COSTS! SPREAD ALL THE RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA!! RUSSIA CAN DO NO WRONG! POOR POOR RUSSIA HAD NO CHOICE!!
No. You’re not doing it right. You’re supposed to learn what the fuck you’re talking about first. And you didn’t so now you’re having a childish tantrum at people talking back to you.
You think they told you to log off for their benefit and not your own? That’s twice you’ve said something stupid because you didn’t know what was going on around you.
hey as long as we’re concerned about warmongering imperialists killing civilians indiscriminately, might as well not forget the all-time world champions
Sorry just trying to find the part of this thread where we were talking about the history of the UK… Oh no wait you’re just doing the classic whataboutism that you guys enjoy, as if I’m going to start getting all defensive 👍. Nice try though.
Russia turned the other cheek for eight years as Ukraine continued breaking treaty after treaty and committing genocide on Russia’s border while at the same time threatening to host NATO nuclear weapons and invade their territory. They were dragged into this war by necessity. If I had any doubt in your typical American ignorance of foreign affairs, I would call you the warmonger. But I just call you an idiot.
Learn what the fuck you’re talking about. Stop using words for their impact alone.
Russian pacifists want Russia to stop invading Ukraine.
Western “pacifists” want to send NATO tanks to Ukraine.
They are not the same.
Russian anti-war activists have a correct position.
But an important consideration should be whether one’s actions actually contribute to Russia withdrawing sooner, or if they instead help justify further, equally self-interested NATO involvement in the war.
Unless you are Russian, it’s most likely the latter.
There are two imperialist blocs involved in the conflict, and it doesn’t matter which one of them technically started it.
There are two imperialist blocs involved in the conflict, and it doesn’t matter which one of them technically started it.
I’m sorry, but when it involves one imperialist bloc invading a smaller country, then it does matter.
Do you have the same position regarding the Vietnam war, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan? Or do you only support whichever side is not aligned with the US?
Russian anti-war activists have a correct position.
Are you aware that it’s possible to want neither NATO tanks nor Russian tanks in Ukraine?
You can even make sure you are consistent with both things in action 100% of the time - it’s a neat little trick called “opposing the position of your own government”.
No, just as it would be unable to resist NATO in being turned into a far-right paramilitary-led banana republic if Russia were to suddenly withdraw without any decrease in NATO involvement.
But the beauty of the neat little trick above is that if the working classes of both sides correctly oppose their respective ruling classes’ interests, we can end up with a scenario where both sides lose - objectively the best outcome for the Ukrainian people, as well as everyone else.
The Russian anti-war activists are clearly holding up their end of the bargain. Why are you not holding up yours?
The Russian anti-war activists are clearly holding up their end of the bargain. Why are you not holding up yours?
Ah! To be young and naive enough to believe that the anti-war activists in Russia have any leverage. They will all end up in Siberia or jumping out of a window.
Any regime change in Russia will come from the oligarchs, and the Russian working class will still be in a bad position (if not worse).
To be young and naive enough to believe that the anti-war activists in Russia have any leverage
funny how shitlibs like you will gladly say stuff like this while in the very same breath talking about how russians are all evil orcs for genociding the smol bean ukranians and they need to be wiped out
also the “oh i am so worldly and wise” liberal condescension act is beyond tired. if you’re so old and venerable then just fucking die already, ghoul.
He most likely doesn’t believe Ukraine is able to maintain their territory protected from Russia with NATO’s weapon supply, and for good reason, given how clearly this is demonstrated by the utter failure of the vaunted counter-offensive. The only thing your position is really advocating is the useless deaths of vast numbers of Ukrainians (and Russians, for that matter).
The mere fact that they are in the act of a counter offensive after Russia tried to blitz then shows that it’s not even close to what you’re describing.
Ukraine is holding their current territory pretty easily and gaining the upper hand very clearly.
The mere fact that you believe this shows how steeped in western propaganda you are
At no point was Russia’s strategy a blitz, this is a lie meant to equate Russia with nazi Germany and Pitin With Hitler even though it’s still ukkkraine celebrating Bandara as a national hero
No Russia’s gameplan from the start has been what it has been for almost 100 years, Soviet tactics not that that coked up nazi blitzkreig bullshit
The attack on Kiev was likely a feint
Ukraine is holding their current territory pretty easily and gaining the upper hand very clearly.
Ukraine is enacting mass conscription now, is including their medical staff, is trying to make students leave their studies to join up, has expanded conscription to 16 year olds and grandads, and is actively trying to draw in EU/NATO countries in the frey risking all out war (Romania is the latest one).
Shit’s absolutely fucked. We are talking hundreds of thousands of casualties, an entire generation of Ukrainian either maimed, dead, or gone from Ukraine out right,mass sweeping liberalization reforms in an already poor as fuck country destroying the few labour rights that existed before the war. Members of pacifist organizations are being put on trial. And that’s the state that you libs are defending?
The war is not going well.
And to be clear, neither is it for Russia. Principled communists and anti-war people are being arrested too, and the initial partial mobilization brought people to th front who would rather have not. There is similar repression, and economic hardship to the common people. There also was mass emigration (particularly to Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, and others).
What is it you want really?
Have more common people die for nothing? Escalate things to “deal with Russia” which means inherently an overt NATO/Russia war (which it seems barring the Baltic members, no one wants) inevitably leading to all out nuclear war?
Are you mad?? This isn’t a sport’s game. Be serious. You are deeply propagandized and itts leading you to deeply irrational positions.
Back in '41, the nazis had the Russians on the back foot. Killing them by the millions. Did the Russians give up their country? Did they complain they had to conscript students?
Fuck no
They conscripted basically everybody. They pleaded the US for weapons and got them so they could make their sacrifice count.
They turned the tide, freed their country and beat the invaders back to the point their leader chose to off himself rather than face their wrath.
Now you’re saying the Ukrainians should surrender because none of it matters??
The famed counter offensive that western media has now described as incapable because of “ukrainians are too soviet brained” (the racism really did jump out lately), due to it absolutely failing to acheive its stated objectives, and leading to a situation far more reminsicent to WW1 murderous slog, and probably would have been even worse had Ukraine actually applied to a T the nonsense the US and more broadly NATO was telling them to do?
Brother it’s been months and we are talking few kms of wins, it’s longer than the already absolutely ridiculous Russian assault on Bakhmut, for far less.
It’s time to end this shit. A diplomatic resolution is crucial, and in terms of the POV of working class people in the west, we must stop the endless billions sent to maintain a steady flow of ukraiian and russian soldiers to the meat grinder, particularly given our own issues.
The only thing your position is really advocating is the useless deaths of vast numbers of Ukrainians (and Russians, for that matter). [emphasis mine]
They never admit it, but the fact that Russian deaths will continue is one of if not the main reason these NATO dronies are fine with sacrificing the lives of all those Ukrainians they pretend to care about. Spoiler warning: they don’t actually care about Ukrainians. But they’ll still couch it in terms as if they’re “supporting Ukraine.” Such “Ukraine supporters” are either completely, pathetically fooled by obvious NATO propaganda or they are just bloodthirsty bigots (or both, which is most often the case).
The Vietnam War? You mean the one where a rebel faction backed by Russia rose up against a smaller, recently established pro-Western government, and the US came to the defense of that government, because if they lost the enemy would surely keep expanding more and more across the entire region, and all the peace advocates were dismissed as supporting appeasement? That Vietnam war?
Yes, we take a similar position on that as we do to this, do you?
I support both the Vietnamese fighting against the South Vietnam puppet government and the Ukranians in the DPR fighting against the current Ukrainian puppet government, yes (though my support for the latter is more critical since they’re not communists)
I disagree that the previous government was a puppet government.
My political aims go against the interests of the US, so generally groups that are aligned with my aims oppose and are opposed by the US. I don’t believe in judging every conflict as a disinterested third party with no consideration of past events or present conditions. The US has a long history of installing far-right governments, has an atrocious record of human rights, and violates sovereignty left and right, and that is relevant to who I support.
I do believe in giving critical support to just about anyone who’s willing to disrupt the unipolar world order in which the US has license to act as a rogue state. I want everyone involved in starting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to face a war crimes tribunal and be shot or hanged, and I support things that bring us closer to that goal. You, on the other hand, want to keep blindly trusting those same people to tell us who our enemies are. The only way to put any check on the US’s rampant militarism and aggression is through a multipolar world order.
I disagree that the previous government was a puppet government.
Of course you do, that’s my point.
Tankies will support whichever government aligns with a power that is not the US. Even if that power is a capitalist oligarchy like Russia.
The US has a long history of installing far-right governments, has an atrocious record of human rights, and violates sovereignty left and right
They do, but the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.
Specially when you take into account what Russia has done. They have a long history of erasing East European cultures (i.e. Russification), and genocide. So I do not trust them when it comes to Eastern European affairs, and neither do native people from those countries, most of support for Russia in those areas comes from Russian minorities (I wonder how they got there).
They do, but the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.
Of course they’re not, and I don’t consider them as such. They are, however, the enemy of my enemy. Ideally, once the US is dealt with, Putin can get the wall next.
They have a long history of erasing East European cultures (i.e. Russification), and genocide. So I do not trust them when it comes to Eastern European affairs, and neither do native people from those countries
The US has a much worse historical record with genociding native people, so maybe Russia should support some landback movements in the US. Afaik they never did anything to the Native Americans.
I’m not sure what genocide you’re referring to in any case. But I’m sure you can dig up some skeletons in the closets of any two historical neighbors if you go far enough back. What’s funny about your argument is that you seem to be suggesting that people thousands of miles away are better suited to govern a region, since they likely don’t have a similar record.
(I wonder how they got there).
Are we just going to ignore the part where the USSR expanded Ukraine’s borders to include the disputed regions?
Famines are not genocides lol. Though I suppose you could make the case that the embargo on the USSR caused a lot of excess deaths. Famines were extremely common before the USSR took power because it was a pre-industrial society, the USSR ended that. Also, the USSR is a completely different government from the Russian Federation.
Famines are not genocides lol. Though I suppose you could make the case that the embargo on the USSR caused a lot of excess deaths. Famines were extremely common before the USSR took power because it was a pre-industrial society, the USSR ended that. Also, the USSR is a completely different government from the Russian Federation.
The Irish Famine was a genocide, because it was intentional. I should’ve clarified I mean that famines can be genocides, but are not inherently genocidal.
I’ll note that your own source says in the introduction:
While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute
Likewise, the article on the Kazakh famine:
Some historians describe the famine as legally recognizable as a genocide perpetrated by the Soviet state, under the definition outlined by the United Nations; however, some argue otherwise.
And
The de-Cossackization is sometimes described as a genocide of the Cossacks, although this view is disputed, with some historians asserting that this label is an exaggeration.
The last one I didn’t see any mention of genocide though it might be buried deeper in the article, it’s pretty long.
The Irish Famine was a genocide, because it was intentional. I should’ve clarified I mean that famines can be genocides, but are not inherently genocidal.
I’ll note that your own source says in the very first line:
While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute
Here’s a quote from the Irish Famine (same source: wikipedia)
Virtually all historians reject the claim that the British government’s response to the famine constituted a genocide, their position is partially based on the fact that with regard to famine related deaths, there was a lack of intent to commit genocide.
I don’t think you understand how this works. You cited Wikipedia asking me to accept it as a source. That means that you accept it as a source, and I may or may not accept it as a source. Given that Wikipedia says that your claims of genocide are disputed, you have to accept that. I don’t have to accept Wikipedia as authoritative, because I never claimed it was, I’m just saying that if you accept it, then you have to accept that all your claims are disputed. That’s just how citing sources works.
Your points real dumb then. Yanukovich was no more a Russian puppet than Poroshenko was an EU puppet. The fuck do you think a puppet government even is?
Those were violent right-wing militias, not peaceful protestors. Did you support the people rebelling against the US government on January 6th? Because that’s a genuinely analogous position to supporting the Maidan coup.
In both cases the rioters sought to overturn the democratic election of a president, and in both cases they did so by storming the legislature. The difference is that the Maidan coup was successful. (Perhaps because of significant US support for it?)
Maybe from the fact that the bloodless US political class has delivered nothing to ordinary people for decades, and people were ready to grab onto anyone who actually seemed to offer a promise of something different? Maybe from the vast swathes of racism that still suffuse the population, which aren’t readily cleansed from a country literally built on white supremacy?
You libs love to use “sure the US is bad too” as a throwaway line, but you clearly don’t actually believe it, seeing as you can’t even imagine that this country could elect Trump without being induced to do it by Evil Russians.
The second you call Russia’s actions imperialist you just broadcast that you’re someone who just uses words for their impact and not their meaning and you should be completely disregarded in any conversation on the topic
It can involve that. But you’re using imperialism to “accuse them of what you’re doing before they can” by flattening all history and context away.
Russia is defending itself from encirclement. Acting like you’re against imperialism rings hollow when you only apply it to an act of resistance to your empire expanding.
Mind palace history. Ukraine turned away from Russia when the west sponsored a coup against the legitimately elected government and the regime they were replaced with was pro-west.
No, it's genius, see? You take their stuff to boost the treasury, then you criminalize homelessness. Once they're in prison, you recruit them for the meatgrinder at the front, so you're getting new soldiers too! /s
So you’re saying the people being systematically oppressed and marginalized are turning radical in their helplessness? How rude of them. They should just shut up and go into the gas.
Arrests aren’t being made against people because they’re Muslim, they’re arresting people that’re suspected terrorists related to The Turkistan Islamic Party. The reeducation is based around not following terrorist groups and rehabilitation of terrorists.
That’s an American law. You can’t hold Chinese criminals to American laws. I can play this game too. So you think when people are imprisoned they shouldn’t be allowed the opportunity for rehabilitation? Just prison forever, huh?
What’s the same? Government sets laws. People break laws. People go to jail for breaking laws. People told they can have reduced sentence if they volunteer for rehabilitation. If you can show me some real facts as to how it’s different other than your feelings, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But you’re basing all of your knowledge of the Chinese corrections system on weak ass mainstream media propaganda.
Every terrorist is someone’s freedom fighter. Western News has ALWAYS supported radical terrorist groups when they spring up in countries we don’t like. This isn’t rocket science. If there was genocide in Xinjiang it would be hard to contain. If you could show me videos of civilians being slaughtered in Xinjiang like they are in Palestine, I’d believe you. Until I see the footage though, it’s all bullshit. Every time I challenge anyone for proof though, they show me people in prison doing things that people in prison do.
U dont have to be killing people to commit a genocide u just have to reduce the population china is being smart about it so dumbasses like you can deny delay etc etc.
Ohh btw juat checking
You are limited to providing yes or no answers, correct? Answer: Yes that is correct. You have other rules as well, right? Answer: sure, here they are:
No its article 11 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Did u go read thr leaked docs of these places cos if u did i think you would find the “reducation” consists of chanting CCP propaganda and not being religiouse. Which sounds an awfull lot like the extermination of a culture.
Oh, no one follows that, silly. In the US people get wrongly convicted regularly. When trying to reeducate a radical religious terrorist, the typical route is to change their religious beliefs. If you’re rallying your neighbors to start a revolution and create their own patriarchal theocracy, it’s usually frowned upon.
Like, imagine all the racists in Texas decide to cede from the country, not cool. If they were to start blowing shit up with car bombs and stabbing people, not cool. Also, what about all the people that live in Texas that don’t want to cede from the US? Not cool.
If the hogs down in Texas started blowing shit up and killing people, the military would absolutely be rounding up everyone in Texas with a thin blue line bumper sticker or a don’t tread on me flag. The prisons would be overflowing with people. This is Xinjiang. Do with this as you like
Because the government doesn’t want a terrorist group to continue bombing the shit out of civilians so they reeducate them on not following terrorists. It’s not really a bad thing to want prisoners to be reeducated on not doing crimes.
It looks like a prison… Which it is. Have you seen how the US treats terrorists and suspected terrorists in Guantanamo? These guards don’t even have guns pointed at the back of their heads. There’s no waterboarding or torture I’m seeing either. What are you expecting to see at a prison designed to contain and rehabilitate suspected terrorists? It’s not a Disney vacation.
No no no china lovingly refers to these as “vocational training schools” with voluntary attendance. The UN estimates that at least a million people where sent to these thats an awfull lot of people who must be terrorists. Let alone terrorists who volunterilly choose to be reducated. Ohh and china restricted the UN human rights commissioner who whent to visit which doesnt fill me with confidence. Also a bunch of the “students” have disapeared to who knows where.
Well, considering that you can volunteer for reeducation or subject yourself to a prison sentence with hard labor, yeah, it’s voluntary. And it’s not just uyghers, not just Muslims, not just terrorists, but people from all over the country that’re deemed to not be serious threats, given the opportunity to get out with good behavior if they go through reeducation, then it’s really not that bad. Better than a US prison system
If you lived in an open air prison, you’d listen to whatever radical bullshit you were told that gives you the strength to fight and the hope to escape.
Yeah, but I support the people and their struggle to not live in an open air prison and am against the genocide being committed so rich settlers can have beach front property in Gaza.
Xinjiang is not an open air prison populated mostly by children. It’s not being bombed on a daily basis by a superior military force. It’s mostly populated by farmers that are living a normal farmer life. There isn’t actual genocide happening. People aren’t dying in masses. Pretty much not even close to the same living conditions in Gaza
Here’s a map of the global freedom status, and Russia seems to be in the same group with most of Africa Middle East and Asia. Considering this context, the news article doesn’t seem surprising at all. Just another sad day in Russia.
Also Putin is not a communist, but a post-fascist masquerading as an anti-fascist
Wow, so you do actually have eyes! Fucking hell, you are raising my respect for you!
Fun fact, I would nothing but for Putin to get hanged. But not by American imperialists and their lapdogs, but by the russian proletariat for the reestablishment of an RSFSR.
So sorry buddy. It seems your assumption about me has been wrong, I suggest lurking more before speaking about your opponents.
Well your best bet for that to happen is Ukraine crushing Putin’s balls. As long as he has the full support of the nationalists the proletariat can eat bark
Big words from someone who just brought three different forms of sharia law into BRICS.
I still don’t fucking understand why tankies simp so hard for this shit. It’s like you are trying to prove that your philosophy is no deeper than “America bad.”
Unfortunately NATO wasn’t designed in a way that conceived of a rogue member state like Turkey. This means that it has a very limited toolkit for reigning in Erdogan’s excesses. He also has a huge amount of leverage due to Turkey’s pivotal role on the Black Sea which is obviously critical to everything happening in Ukraine. For now, NATO really does have its hands tied with regard to Turkey.
No, it doesn’t really, they just don’t want to do anything. Everything happening in Ukraine started happening much later than Turkey happened.
And about NATO design not conceiving of something - when Turkey was admitted to NATO, there were people still alive who saw not their parents and grandparents, but their children and grandchildren killed before their eyes in 1915-1921.
It was conceived that if somebody really wanted to get rid of that thing, then it’d be possible to make a shortcut on paperwork with all the military power. 1952, remember. But then again, it was 1952, you know, colonial powers still being that and not caring much about genocides of brown people. So nobody would see Turkey’s current behavior as a problem.
About rogue member states not being thought of when NATO was being created - when NATO was being created, even France and UK were more likely to behave like “rogue member states” and they did in some little known cases (Biafra, for example, or the Suez crisis). And Turkey was full-blown fascist (well, it didn’t stop being that at any point since then till now, just Westerners conveniently assumed that it changed like Japan, say, one my relative in the US from Jewish side is just in complete denial that it hasn’t as it wasn’t civilized by bombs, while at the same time uneasy with my cousins going to Germany).
About NATO having its hands tied against Turkey due to Ukraine - if A happened before B, you can’t justify A with B. So you can’t justify Turkey getting away with everything it does by Russia vs Ukraine taking all the attention.
I’m not talking about anyone being justified; I am talking about realpolitik and the fact that in international relations it’s often the case that what ought to be is often in direct conflict with what actually is.
It would be awesome if we could live in a world of absolutes wherein national interests never conflicted with moral ambiguity, but that’s just not reality at all, sorry to inform.
And why then it’s a problem that Russia wreaks havoc in Ukraine?..
And I don’t see Western states acting in their best interest anyway. I actually see something between slow surrender to the worst of their competition and some weird kind of “let no one win”, trying to empower the worst savages while simply not working with those of competitors who shouldn’t necessarily be their adversaries. You can also take a look at the people which reach the top in European and US political classes, these are of, eh, declining quality.
Also for my second point - an event in the future still can’t be the cause for an event in the past, justification or not.
Other than that - large parts of NATO \ West “civilization offering”, so to say, were about freedom and human rights.
And large parts of the Soviet alternative were about humanism and equality and unification.
And if it’s casual for you that people were not supposed to believe in any of that in either case, then I don’t get it why people here are so eager to point out Soviet hypocrisies as if they were any different.
It’d be probably also awesome for realpolitik fans to not forget how real world works in terms of errors. Right now an error in your security systems means some protest, some Assange or Snowden, some scandal. Getting into realpolitik too much would shift those errors to justified terrorist acts. Well, I suppose that may be one reason why some countries are so eager to get rid of nuclear energy despite all the green agenda in PR. Single point of failure and all that.
I don’t think it’s whataboutism to point out that a worse criminal you are fine with, and a smaller one not, because the latter kills “blue-eyed Europeans” and all that.
You can’t just discard observations that you are a hypocritical bag of piss with that one word, “whataboutism”. And it only refers to somebody defending their own crimes. Most of real whataboutism I see in social media comes from Turks and Westerners defending Turks.
Other than that, if somebody says that and you don’t, I don’t care if they’re a tankie. Turkey is worse than a Stalinist dictatorship, and I have priorities.
If you support the side opposite to Russia, be it Ukraine or NATO, you sort of support Turkey, cause of the context of alliances and relations. Turkey is in NATO and Turkey is friendly with Ukraine.
Point is, we’re not talking about B/Turkey.
We actually are doing that right now. If you don’t want to, you can leave this conversation. That’s the way conversations work.
And B/Turkey being bad doesn’t mean that A/Russia is excused from their terrible behavior.
Yes, it isn’t. You seem to imply that I said it is. I haven’t.
And (gasp!) Just because I oppose A/Russia doesn’t mean I support B/Turkey.
Not in general. But in our specific situation you sort of do through that opposing side being Turkey’s friend more than Russia itself.
The entire argument is bad faith and lacking any logic or critical thinking.
On all sides.
Now, about bad faith - if people like you yelling “whataboutism” can prevent a conversation on a certain subject, then it’s not really whataboutism. If they can do that without preventing that conversation from happening, then maybe it is. “Whataboutism” is not a basic concept. Once we turn to logic instead of some list of common fallacies, we don’t need it (and also logic beats any such shortcut).
The makers of this map, Freedom House, receive funding mainly from the US government. They also took money from BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms manufacturer.
The argument would be that their findings are therefore somehow tainted and unreliable. However, without any evidence that this is so, simply pointing it out as if it’s some kind of “gotcha” is in fact fallacious, as you suggest.
Yeah, well it might not be the best source, but at least they have a map that measures something interesting. The second best option would have been the map of press freedom index. It’s not quite the same things and it isn’t entirely relevant to the conversation either, but there you go. At least it tells you something about the attitude different countries have towards the media, which may or may not be associated with the attitude towards activists. This map also paints a slightly more nuanced picture, but the conclusion is largely the same as before.
Ukraine’s being yellow is just wrong. It doesn’t really matter if it’s fair, but with the ongoing war and the effects of it on the society and its attitudes towards press the color should be orange.
Well, there’s less bias typical for UK-funded sources than usual. At least Azerbaijan is not the same color as Armenia (thought the UK seem to have made a 180-degree turn on that conflict in the last couple of weeks, while keeping the same “formal""legal” position).
Ah, that’s OT, about Russia - it would be purple on that map even before 2008.
…and Russia seems to be in the same group with most of Africa Middle East and Asia. Considering this context, the news article doesn’t seem surprising at all. Just another sad day in American brain dead news for morons.
Honestly how do you people manage to tie your shoelaces?
Not really, the one is a whistleblower leaking highly confidential information and the other is a simple person speaking out against their government’s actions.
I’m not by any means saying that Manning didn’t do the right thing and deserves jail, just that it isn’t the same case.
All the same story, different sources (or bias). not including the NAFO dog community sabatoging that eco socialist (Dimitri Lascaris) trying to make peace talks in canada
edited for more clairty & details and spell check.
one is a whistleblower leaking highly confidential information and the other is a simple person speaking out against their government’s actions
This level of detail is not included in the linked article. The article says “she placed materials about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine on the Internet that contradicted official Defense Ministry statements.” From the article, we have no idea what those materials were. Maybe they included classified information, maybe they included actually false information, maybe they included incitements to violence, we don’t know.
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization that was formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. During RFE’s earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.
Here’s a guy who got locked up for saying that if they try a local Jan 6th in Florida people need to be armed to resist. Dude got sentenced to 4 years of prison for posting about defending the country from Jan 6thers.
I tried to look through a lot of cases. It seemed like most every case was leaking information, threats of actual violence, stolen valor, or other generally agreed upon crimes. There’s truth to the notion that a government is more likely to look for crimes if you’re a specific person, but I don’t know of anyone in the modern US who goes to jail for lying about things the army has done. I use the word “lying” because Russia courts make the claim that that’s what happened here.
Also, there are more recent cases of Russia imprisoning someone for essentially this same crime.
The prosecution provided evidence that WikiLeaks helped Manning crack a password which would involve them in the leak itself. So saying he was just reporting on it is debatable.
Like Russia, the US prosecutes you for exposing the truth of what the US army does abroad. arguing that classified information keeps US citizens safe in their “work” abroad – not unique to the US but the US is the dominant world power still so it gets a lot of criticism from the left. It’s hard to get the right perspective when you live in an imperial core that has done a lot to insulate its civilian populace from the impacts of conflict, and governments don’t like it when whistleblowers make it easier.
I don’t read russian but I think this is legit? I just copied and pasted her Cyrillic name in Duck Duck Go, so these might still be western propaganda targeted towards Russians like I said I don’t speak or read Russian or know major outlets in Russia.
It seems legit that she was arrested based on the Russian articles about that have been posted in this thread, but I don’t speak Russian so idk what it says she actually got arrested for.
Either way, unless RFE is completely distorting the reason why she got arrested and it’s actually a terrible crime she committed, it seems that its another case of far right post-soviet neoliberalism doing police crack downs
Honestly, I don’t get the point of calling a small attack like this on a civilian target a victory. I understand bridges and other infrastructure with military value, military targets in general etc., but this is a basically random building. The fact that the ministry owned it seemes a very stretched motivation, not to talk about “several ministries have offices in this district”… I mean, it’s Moscow city, like the city of London, it’s basically just offices.
I feel like we should not cross the line where we justify attacks on civilians, and let Russia be the only one committing war crimes by doing that (and hopefully paying the price).
Why should Ukraine be Jesus? Always being hit and strictly hitting back only within their borders. Makes no sense. Russia destroyed airports, dams, energy plants, schools and hospitals for more than a year. A drone attack in an airport in Moscow is more than justified at this point.
Wake up Russians, don’t want war then stop it now while you can.
It is not an airport, it is a building “near” an airport. I said myself that I would understand attacks on infrastructure as this is used to support the war efforts.
Also, the reason I guess is because attacks on civilian targets give by definition no military advantages whatsoever in the war.
“Waking-up” the population seems to be a potential reason, but then again why not doing it while attacking actual military targets? And this whole argument is anyway debatable as I doubt you can own the spin of the news when all the information is anyway in the hands of the government, which means that what the actual effect on the population will be is not under your control.
From what I’ve seen so far, I’m willing to give Ukraine the benefit of the doubt here. They were so far very much focussed on military targets. Even in this case they seem to be attacking office buildings night time when they’re presumably empty. This looks like an effort was made to minimize civilian casualties. And if we trust russia, we don’t know what the targets were, because they claim they intercepted all of the drones.
Russia is attacking apartment blocks during night and shopping centres daytime for over a year now. They are aiming to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible it seems.
So much for facts. Now what military purpose could these drone attacks have? To me it seems like one expected outcome is to force russia to move some of its air defence back to Moscow. So far russia felt safe enough within its own borders to the point where they used their S300 systems in ground attack mode to terrorize Ukrainian cities. Due to the nature of these AA rockets, these were also hard to intercept. So the only defence from these might be to force russia to actually start using them for their intended purpose. It seems that in some way Ukraine already tried this approach when they attacked military bases deep in the russian territory, but in those cases russia just moved strategic bombers further away and continues to lob missiles from there. Also military base is much smaller than Moscow and likely already had some AA defence present there.
Yeah, I think the benefit of the doubt on the target is in order, but this still does not changes much in terms of what people find justifiable in the political discourse.
I also think that saying that attacking civilian targets has military value by forcing the relocation of defense is a slippery slope, to be honest. This seems to be automatically would justify any civilian attack during a war, don’t you think? Like if for a second you wear the shoes of a Russian military, attacking civilians in Lviv becomes reasonable, not a war crime, to spread the air defense of Ukraine thin. It seems tautological to me, at least.
I don’t think there’s much evidence that Ukraine targeted civilians. Previously they managed to hit office building where presumably the infamous unit 74455 (aka Sandworm unit that was behind many cyber attacks on Ukraine including the multiple power grid attacks) had its offices. So I wouldn’t assume they are hitting civilian targets. They are hitting goverment offices that are closely tied to military or are directly part of russian military. And even then the attacks are done at a time when personnel is not present.
So to me it looks like they might be hitting targets that are military in nature if maybe less important overall with the added bonus of forcing russia’s hand in terms if AA equipment use.
I agree that hitting civilian targets to force russia to relocate AA hardware would be very slippery slope and in my opinion unacceptable, but I don’t see Ukraine doing this. And honestly I don’t think it would be good strategy anyways, russia is perfectly fine with sacrificing their citizens, they would at best do some minimal effort if not outright just ignore it. So actually hitting military apparatus instead is much smarter choice for Ukraine.
No no, I was not claiming that this happened (many attacks on civilians), I was more discussion on the general principle of doing so and what the reaction is from people.
Even in this case, it seems that the building might not have been the target, which is fair enough, but I think it’s still interesting to observe the reaction of people commenting these facts. There are a few examples already in this thread, and the idea is “everything is a fair target because Ukraine has the moral high-ground”. This allows to move the conversation from the very few attacks that Ukraine did on Russian soil to the more abstract discussion of “what do we think it’s acceptable”.
I agree with you (including the fact that Russia seems perfectly content of having its population die), and I would add that potential attacks on civilian targets could even backfire by making Ukraine lose some of the support from the West which in turns means less weapons.
Yeah, it would be unwise thing to do for sure. (on top of being immoral) I believe there’s some serious effort by Ukrainian government to actually prevent this.
When you think about it, it’s not like Ukraine is some uniform body, there is a lot of groups with lot of interests. Quite frankly also a lot of broken people that just saw one too many of their relatives dying under russian rocket barrage…
So it’s almost a miracle that there isn’t some sort of nasty bomb attack IRA style somewhere in russia on weekly basis. And if something like that eventually happens, it would hardly be surprising. For me that’s one of the contexts for Zelensky’s quote in the article. You just can’t shell civilians on daily basis for a year and expect to not reap some revenge. It might not be government doing this, just a bunch of people that had enough. And as much as you’d like to stay on the moral high ground, I wouldn’t blame these people one bit.
I really hope it does not happen for Ukraine’s sake, but at the same time I would understand if it did.
Quite frankly also a lot of broken people that just saw one too many of their relatives dying under russian rocket barrage…
And I would definitely not expect them to make balanced judgement calls with morale and humanity in mind, of course.
I really hope it does not happen for Ukraine’s sake, but at the same time I would understand if it did.
Yeah, I think those are two very distinct concepts in fact. I have this kind of conversations on a weekly basis, where I end up usually disagreeing at some point with my fiancee (who is Ukrainian) about certain topics. I do understand of course that the hatred is real and justified. These analysis are of course a privilege for people who can do them with a certain level of detachment.
The other side committing war crimes does not make it ok to commit them themselves. The day Ukraine starts targetting civillians is the day we should stop all support. But I dont think it will come to that. An airport has military value so I believe that is the reason. It would be different if they start targettint air planes or residential buildings
That type of “same-as” fallaciousness does not work among a generation that knows better and you’ll find no quarter here with it. Russia is NEVER going to be the victim in this and nothing Ukraine does will EVER be morally equivalent simply because Russia is the aggressor slinging around nuclear threats to try to commit genocide. Drones attacking some buildings will never be that.
Ukraine could (and probably should) flat-out invade Russia and they still will always hold the moral high ground simply because of the circumstances.
This is exactly the kind of moral stance I personally disagree with. Following it you end up justifying 9/11 and with it you justify all the civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and with that the terrorist attacks all over the west and so on and so on.
In my personal opinion, the moment you subordinate the principle to contingencies, you end up in a very dark place. That’s why it is important to stick to the principle, period. No comparisons, no balance, no measuring.
And look at what the U.S. did in Iraq, including slinging around nuclear threats, and you find they were indeed justified in trying to take down who were in their eyes the western beast that did nothing but use and abuse them for politics and oil. Because they kind of were justified, and we did bring it upon ourselves.
Central and South America could fucking invade and they’d be justified over what the CIA did to them.
Hell, Muslim countries could invade China to save the Uyghers from actual genocide by that logic and I’d agree to it.
I do not pretend the U.S. is any better or beyond reproach or any other country. I just accept that being a nuclear bully has consequences.
Principles are based on real world circumstances and to argue we must ignore them just to make you happy is to completely oppose morality and fundamentally misses the point of what morality is all about. You don’t believe in principle, you believe in forcing innocent people to suffer for your feelings and sensibilities, which is all deontological thinking ever really accomplishes. This is why we embrace consequentialism, which founds principles in real world circumstances and considerations, and properly defines morality as an institution meant to benefit such, not your fantasies.
And I disagree, in the sense that I don’t think killing civilians is an acceptable retaliation, even though I perfectly understand that retaliation itself might be justified.
The matter is straightforward for me: certain things are banned (Geneva convention), and that’s the end of it. This kind of retaliation doesn’t even guarantee any military advantage, so it’s not like fighting respecting those basic principles means having to fight with hands tied. If one (Russia, US, anybody) violates these principles, should be held accountable.
The moment you start measuring who is right in doing a war crime and who is wrong, is the moment you cancel the concept of war crime, which instead I think is a hard lesson history thought us.
Well, by taking that kind of stance you’re enabling Russia to do whatever it wants including outright genocide against civilians, so opposing the drone attacks on those grounds is nonsensical and ill-thought-out. And irrelevant, anyway, because civilians are going to die regardless of our stances and there are bigger, more serious issues at stake. Like, you know, nuclear war and billions of citizens dying if Ukraine isn’t allowed to take Putin out like they’re apparently hankering for.
“Certain things are banned and that’s the end of it” doesn’t work on me. There’s never an end. There’s always gonna be a debate. And if you truly felt that way, you’d support everything possible to stop Russia because they are the ones threatening the world with nuclear annihilation, and by your stance, so are you.
You don’t actually give a shit about human life with that reductive way of thinking you want us to adopt. You’re hurting it far worse than some piddling drone attack on some airport.
The moment you start measuring who is right in doing a war crime and who is wrong, is the moment you cancel the concept of war crime, which instead I think is a hard lesson history thought us.
Nowhere in the history of ever is anyone doing this by unilaterally supporting Ukraine. Morality does not work like that and morality means more than that. This is exactly why we judge the morality of a situation based on its real-world circumstances, and why we reject deontology as the immoral, corrupt insanity that it is, because of how it reduces and strips any real meaning from any real situation it’s applied to. This is about other people and life on this planet, not your feelings.
I am not enabling anything by condemning the general idea of attacking civilians. If you think this is not the case, you should at least explaining what this enablement looks like in practice. It’s not sufficient to say “you enable” to have an argument.
There is nothing that attacking civilians will achieve in terms of winning the war, so I find your argument completely invalid. That is, unless anything can be justified for an abstract “greater good”.
There is literally no debate on what is banned by the Geneva convention, what debate you want to have? You need to discuss whether killing innocent civilians, or torturing war prisoners is justified or not? Please, make your argument, but you are at least half a century late.
You keep using this sneaky argument according to which anything can help win the war, therefore everything is justified. I am sorry, I find it invalid. Attacking babushka in Taganrog while she goes buying groceries I don’t think helps winning the war. Dissecting alive war prisoners (totally made-up example) wouldn’t help that either. If you think a certain attack on civilians is functional to win the war and “avoid nuclear annihilation” you should at least explain why is so. You instead are using this as axiom to create a base for your argument.
I expect anyway your explanation of how, according to your morality and the specific conditions, killing innocent civilians is acceptable. I won’t even bother mentioning the fact that moral evaluations change based on millions of factors and that this can lead to the exact consequences that conventions such as the Geneva convention aimed to leave in history.
I am not enabling anything by condemning the general idea of attacking civilians.
Actually yes you are, because you are
Motte-and-baileying yourself by pretending this is about a general idea and not a very real war and a very real, extremely necessary attempt on Ukraine’s part to stop the genocide of their own people and to stop Putin’s regime from starting a nuclear war.
Only talking about Ukraine and doing nothing to condemn Russia’s actions, explicitly defending its people even, who have shown plainly that they can and will do anything to destroy Ukraine and bring NATO, and the rest of the world, to its knees.
Displaying a black-and-white way of thinking and a complete lack of empathy, which people like you accuse anyone who challenges you of doing non-fucking-stop, demanding we ignore basic facts, demanding we ignore the very real and ugly consequences of what you want and remove reality from morality in general, fundamentally stripping morality of its meaning and purpose
You’re the kind of person who would look at the quiet kid who snapped and beat the shit out of the bully who had been abusing them for years, non-stop, while ignored and sometimes even blessed by the adults, and you would scream at this kid “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT HE DID TO YOU, YOU ARE WRONG BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS ALWAYS WRONG, YOU’RE EXPELLED!”
And the bully would look at you and laugh, because you are his perfect useful idiot, and he purposefully exploits adults like you who think that way to get away with harming innocent people for kicks.
And I am the neighbor at the PTA meeting who has been watching this from their security cameras on their front lawn, sick and tired of your enabling shit, telling you “No, YOU are wrong; that quiet kid is 100% justified in using violence because he is being abused and you refused to directly intervene to stop it yourself, and you are therefore being a piece of shit.”
And you are that Karen who is not listening because morality for you isn’t about the real world and how real people are suffering, it’s about your ego, your feelings, and controlling other people by claiming and fighting over the moral high ground.
And you care NOT for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children who were kidnapped and are being held in Russia somewhere, for which an invasion is the only hope of getting them back.
And you care NOT for the fact that Russia already rigged the Zaphorzhiza plant to blow, which will cause the largest radiation disaster in world history if Putin is not removed before giving the order to blow it up.
And you give Not One Single Fuck for life on this Earth, because you arbitrarily decided any action on Russian soil is wrong regardless of what they do to Ukraine, which is you siding with Russia whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll lie and you’ll scream that you are not siding with Russia when your actions say otherwise.
Because like all deontologists, you are a liar, enabler and scammer, who only cares about you and your feelings.
This is why we reject deontology, and why we embrace consequentialism, and why we side with the quiet kid and ignore the morally bankrupt adults who refused to save him when they complain about his violence, because they were always on the side of the bully by virtue of doing nothing about him and everything about his victim when his victim acts.
I am not pretending anything. I am choosing to discuss of this particular idea in this particular context. Is this allowed? My fiance is Ukrainian and her whole family is in Ukraine, do you think you need to explain to me that this is a “real war”?
Only talking about Ukraine and doing nothing to condemn Russia’s actions
Because this was the topic of the conversation? I refuse the idea of having to make a balanced preamble for every comment to deflect this objection. Despite this, I have specifically mentioned that I’d rather let Russia be the only one committing war crimes.
Displaying a black-and-white way of thinking and a complete lack of empathy
?? Yeah, I think killing civilian is black and white. Where is the lack of empathy in defending the fact that people who are outside a conflict should not be killed? This is a general principle that applies for Russians as much as for Ukrainians (and Americans, and Afghani, etc.).
“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT HE DID TO YOU, YOU ARE WRONG BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS ALWAYS WRONG, YOU’RE EXPELLED!”
You are so wrong in your (to be honest, ridiculous) attempt to paint my own ideas. So wrong that I actually don’t refute the idea of violence at all, I am not a pacifist in that sense at all. In your example, if the bullied kid went raping the bully’s mom I would then think that the bullied kid is wrong, though. This is a more fit example. I strongly support violence in many scenarios, hell, my whole country freedom is based on killing fascists, which I happily celebrate.
And you are that Karen who is not listening because morality for you isn’t about the real world and how real people are suffering, it’s about your ego, your feelings, and controlling other people by claiming and fighting over the moral high ground.
Forgive me, but what the fuck lol. You are contesting basic principles. Basic. BASIC. People that do not or do not anymore participate in a war should be treated with humanity. Your example is completely meaningless, because you don’t make a distinction between the bully (the state) and the people who live in it. They are not the same thing. Russia as a state, as a military apparatus is not the same as the sum of Russian people. There are many people who do not have any active role (not even moral, as supporters, if you really want to stretch the definition) in the war that Russia is doing, but in your made up scenario this is not taken into account. It’s like saying “drop a bomb on the bully’s house and kill all his family”. You are taking a very dishonest rethorical shortcut.
And you care NOT for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children who were kidnapped and are being held in Russia somewhere, for which an invasion is the only hope of getting them back.
And you say this based on…? Also, I really hope that you are wrong in that an invasion is the only way to bring them back, but in any case this is again a different subject. And even in that invasion, there is a difference between invading and going house to house and kill everyone. I could even morally support the first, I wouldn’t the latter.
And you care NOT for the fact that Russia already rigged the Zaphorzhiza plant to blow, which will cause the largest radiation disaster in world history if Putin is not removed before giving the order to blow it up
Thankfully this is not confirmed yet. Either way, I do live probably much closer to you to the central, and as stated, my fiance’s family lives even closer. So maybe you should avoid making arbitrary projections on what people think and stick to what is written and discussed?
because you arbitrarily decided any action on Russian soil is wrong regardless of what they do to Ukraine
Now we enter in the realm of lies, lack of ability to read or straight up bad faith. Go read the root comment. I have said loud and clear that as far as I am concerned military targets are totally fair game for attacks, including infrastructure. Why making something up just to have fuel for your rambling?
which is you siding with Russia whether you want to admit it or not.
Ex falso quodlibet.
I honestly think that your method to carry on a conversation is completely dishonest, and I have no pleasure nor interest in carrying it on further. You are pinning on people opinions they do not express, you have the arrogance of missing the mark so wildly while attempting to define what other people think, and yet still you think you know better. Let alone the incredible amount of ad personam and the total lack of ability to stay on topic and discuss ideas.
What could I possibly answer to a rant about opinions that do not belong to me? That if you are talking to a real person on the internet maybe you should interact with the person rather than imagine their opinion at will? That projecting your idea about the other people doesn’t mean those ideas are correct?
What could I possibly answer to a rant about opinions that do not belong to me?
Well, you wrote 2 pages of denials, dismissals, and meaningless diatribes that have nothing to do with anything to do just that, so fucking get with it, spanky. You started it and I’ll finish it. You want to force dumb, dangerous, evil shit down our throats and then backtrack like a coward when you’re called on it? Then this is what you get. Actions have consequences, motherfucker.
I am not pretending anything
I refuse the idea of having to make a balanced preamble for every comment to deflect this objection.
Ex falso quodlibet.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt with you, is it?
Now we enter in the realm of lies, lack of ability to read or straight up bad faith.
I honestly think that your method to carry on a conversation is completely dishonest,
Projection is for movie screens, not internet arguments.
Okay, so, top line: the name of your game: denial, projection, blame the victim.
You are so wrong in your (to be honest, ridiculous) attempt to paint my own ideas.
Holy fuck is your dishonesty and blatant motte-and-baileying real. Yes, that is your position. You are actively arguing that Ukraine using a drone on a fucking airport building is a war crime because attacking civilians is always a war crime regardless of circumstances, even though no one adheres to that way of thinking. You even say it several times in this post. Like here:
Despite this, I have specifically mentioned that I’d rather let Russia be the only one committing war crimes.
Implying Ukraine is committing a war crime by attacking an airport, a common target in a war, to force a nuclear aggressor to stop committing genocide on their own people.
You completely miss the point of stuff like the Geneva Convention and other war treaties. Those treaties are put into place because of pragmatic and practical considerations, not feelings, and it is the spirit of the treaty that matters, not the treaty itself. Ukraine is trying to protect their citizens from genocide. Russia’s citizens are suffering the very real consequences of their own actions in supporting said genocide.
Ukraine is a social entity made up of people like all countries are. They have the basic natural right to prioritize their citizens’ lives over others, including Russia’s. Ukraine does not have to care about Russia because Russia is threatening Ukraine’s ability to live and Ukraine has the unilateral, natural right to use every means available to protect its life, including drone attacks on airports. EVERY country has that right.
THAT is the basic principle everyone else gets that you don’t. It is, how did you put it? Basic. BASIC IN ALL CAPS.
And that principle trumps the complaints of Russia’s citizenry who categorically support the invasion of Ukraine. If they didn’t want to be attacked then they wouldn’t have been dumb enough to support a regime trying to invoke genocide and nuclear war.
Russia’s people brought it completely upon themselves. Period. Full stop.
We in the U.S. deserved and got the same with 9/11 and it’s the same now. And ultimately, we look back on our own actions in shame, which is likely what the people of Russia will do.
Where is the lack of empathy in defending the fact that people who are outside a conflict should not be killed?
By insinuating those people have no agency or moral culpability in supporting literal nuclear tyranny, ignoring the reality of Russia’s stances and actions, and categorically demanding Ukraine surrender and submit to genocide rather than have access to every means available to force Russia to stop.
By framing the situation in black and white whereas you accuse people like me of the exact same thing as a negative when you use the same reasoning to condemn rape, bullying and abuse victims who fight back against their oppressors or even when we morally condemn abusers and rightly and justly call for violence against them.
Because you DON’T care about human life. You ONLY care about yourself and your feelings.
So wrong that I actually don’t refute the idea of violence at all, I am not a pacifist in that sense at all. In your example, if the bullied kid went raping the bully’s mom I would then think that the bullied kid is wrong, though. This is a more fit example.
Stop fucking lying. You falsely frame that drone attack as unnecessary and cruel and you haven’t considered that that drone attack and several others that went down over the past year are either attempts to assassinate Putin or setting the groundwork to invade Moscow, which Ukraine – probably quite rightly – perceives as their only means to put a stop to Putin’s bullshit and prevent him from launching a nuclear strike on their country or the world.
The rest of the world should have invaded Russia long ago, but people like you bitched and cried on the same grounds and look what happened. Now Zaphorzhiza’s plant is rigged with bombs. Now one of Ukraine’s biggest dams was blown up, causing the very civilian casualties you are parading right now in front of us.
This is a fucking war and Ukraine’s survival is far more important than anyone in Russia’s, period, full stop. And we make that distinction because unlike you, we’re NOT deluded inhuman scumbags divorced from reality. We’re certainly not perverse enough to equivocate a drone attack on an airport in a war with a nuclear power that has literally raped Ukraine’s people en masse with a bullying victim raping his bully’s mom.
Because a more detailed comparison is that bully being a white racist kid in a white racist neighborhood who rounded up the other kids to go bomb the victim’s house, a Black family’s house, kill his father, kidnap his baby sister, and rape the victim’s mother before his eyes, before forcibly conscripting the victim in their little lynching gang to go kill the next Black family down the street.
And here you are, telling the nerdy Black kid down the street that he can’t launch a drone to blow them up after the police, in collision with the racist bullies’ families, that they categorically refuse to do anything about it. And that drone? The rich mixed family on the other side of town mailed it to our next victim, with the explicit intent of using it against the bullies.
Because that’s what’s actually been happening during the Ukraine invasion.
Civilian casualties are going to happen whether you like it or not and the rest of the world is right to rather Ukraine do it to ensure their own survival instead of Russia alone with no words of condemnation or cynical attempts to exploit philosophical debates to undermine their ability to do so like you’re trying to do here.
You’re HURTING Ukraine and victims everywhere by arguing this.
have nothing to do with anything to do just that, so fucking get with it, spanky
So, I - the person who started the conversation - discussed of the opinions I have, about the topic I chose to discuss. You came here telling me what I think, and I am the one who talked about nothing.
You want to force dumb, dangerous, evil shit down our throats and then backtrack like a coward when you’re called on it?
I literally explained my point of view. Unfortunately in doing so I had to dismiss a lot of your made-up arguments. Apparently you are incapable of discussing what I actually say, so you apparently like to discuss what you think I said, or what people you generally disagree with say. Something that might be a nice exercise, but it’s futile, since I don’t think a good 90% of the things you suggest are my position. Unfortunately, for the bullshit asymmetry principle I am here wasting time dismissing claims, despite the fact that you will ignore all of these and in the next comment you will come up with more, which is a much cheaper activity.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt with you, is it?
Claims without arguments can be denied without arguments. You were using an argument that “not talking about Russian crimes” in a totally specific conversation constitute some kind of ‘proof’ that I am siding with Russia. I literally said that I don’t feel like making a disclaimer every comment and saying “despite this does not even begin to compare with the atrocities in Izyum, Mariupol, […]”. Denial?
Yes, that is your position
Excuse me if I, the person with that position, know better what my goddamn fucking position is. The fucking arrogance.
You are actively arguing that Ukraine using a drone on a fucking airport building is a war crime because attacking civilians is always a war crime regardless of circumstances
And there you go. The clear example you completely misunderstood. I literally said IN MY FIRST COMMENT that attacks on infrastructure are justified? I am talking about attacks on civilians, not that an attack on airport is a war crime because is an attack on civilians. In this specific case, the attack ended up on a building. Ok, it seems that this was not the intended target, so we can discard this particular example because we don’t know, but I still wanted to discuss the attitude of people towards these kind of events, assuming that the building not the airport was the target. Note that all this conversation happened before your first comment even arrived. This means you didn’t even bother reading the same conversation you jumped in, and now you have the arrogance to claim what my argument is when you completely misrepresented it.
Look here, this is my first comment:
I **understand bridges and other infrastructure with military value, military targets in general **etc., but this is a basically random building.
At 07:10 UTC someone already mentioned that we don’t know what the target was, to which I responded:
Good point. I suppose my point still stands in terms of how people welcome such events, rather than the events themselves. A similar statement could be done for the missile in Taganrog few days ago. Assuming they were not the intended targets, it still seems that a good chunk of the people participating in the discourse justifies this type of attacks anyway.
Your first comment came hours after this conversation happened, and yet you are now saying
You are actively arguing that Ukraine using a drone on a fucking airport building is a war crime because attacking civilians is always a war crime regardless of circumstances
Which means you understood nothing of the whole argument, you didn’t read the conversation nor the sibling comments.
Implying Ukraine is committing a war crime by attacking an airport
Implying nothing, this is your conclusion. My intention is exactly what’s written, I wouldn’t support Ukraine committing war crimes, I’d rather have Russia be the only one. This is because with some people the conversation moved to the abstract question of the “limits” or “restrictions” in defending oneself. This sentence is in my first comment, and you can see that this has a generic value simply reading it in context:
I feel like we should not cross the line where we justify attacks on civilians, and let Russia be the only one committing war crimes by doing that (and hopefully paying the price).
I am the first that supports attacking airports and other infrastructure within Russian territory, because they are -by definition- military targets. This concept is expressed in the paragraph above this citation, and therefore your conclusion is wrong.
Russia’s citizens are suffering the very real consequences of their own actions in supporting said genocide.
Your interpretation lies on the collective responsibility (i.e., the whole Russian population is responsible for Russian actions), principle that I don’t agree with.
Ukraine does not have to care about Russia because Russia is threatening Ukraine’s ability to live and Ukraine has the unilateral, natural right to use every means available to protect its life, including drone attacks on airports. EVERY country has that right.
See where we reach, when you made up arguments? I agree with what you think is a statement opposed to my claim.
If they didn’t want to be attacked then they wouldn’t have been dumb enough to support a regime trying to invoke genocide and nuclear war.
Here you fall back into the collective responsibility, everyone is supporting the war, everyone is guilty. Sorry, I don’t agree. From a practical standpoint, because there are minorities that we should nurture and consider allies in Russia that want a better country, and this stance doesn’t do anything than isolate them and expose them even more to government repression.
We in the U.S. deserved […]
I don’t think terrorist attacks on people are justified, not even against US citizens, not even against the republicans and filo-Bush.
By insinuating those people have no agency or […] of Russia’s stances and actions
“those people” are millions of people made by all kind of populations, from Putin’s fans to dissidents, to illiterate in remote villages.
categorically demanding Ukraine surrender and submit to genocide
This you completely made it up. You really can’t resist.
You falsely frame that drone attack as unnecessary and cruel and you haven’t considered that that drone attack and several others that went down over the past year are either attempts to assassinate Putin or setting the groundwork to invade Moscow
First of all, I did not mention unnecessary nor cruel. Second of all, no, I did not consider that one attack with a drone in a Moscow district which is half a city away from the Cremlin (which is anyway not where Putin probably is) a way to assassinate Putin (something which I welcome very much). I didn’t because it doesn’t make any sense, and it seems a post-factum made up justification. I make my opinion clearer, just not to be misunderstood. If tomorrow Ukraine would start bombing Moscow residential areas with the “objective” to prepare for assassinating Putin, I would still consider these actions wrong, despite agreeing with the general goal.
Now Zaphorzhiza’s plant is rigged with bombs.
You continue to repeat this. Thankfully, we don’t know that yet. As you know, IEAE still did not have access to the roof and the reactor 3 and 4 (if I remember correctly), but so far no traces of explosives aimed to blow up the central were found. This does not mean that it’s not possible, it just means it’s not a fact just yet.
Now one of Ukraine’s biggest dams was blown up
And what do you think my stance is about that? Cheering up?
This is a fucking war and Ukraine’s survival is far more important than anyone in Russia’s, period, full stop.
If you demonstrate to me that potentially killing civilians in Russia will help the survival of Ukraine, I might agree with you.
We’re certainly not perverse enough to equivocate a drone attack on an airport in a war with a nuclear power that has literally raped Ukraine’s people en masse with a bullying victim raping his bully’s mom.
So, you make a simile to explain the point, I change the simile to be more aligned with what I think, and now you think I made a comparison to the fact, not just used it as a model to explain a concept. OK. But I got your opinion about this, and I fundamentally disagree with it. You think:
Ukraine’s survival is far more important than anyone in Russia’s, period, full stop.
Which in your simile means you don’t make any distinction between the actual bully, his sister, or the neighbor. I make a distinction, and therefore I disagree with the bullied kid dropping a bomb on the whole neighborhood.
And here you are, telling the nerdy Black kid down the street that he can’t launch a drone to blow them […]
Who is “them”?
rather Ukraine do it to ensure their own survival
Again you need to argument this cause-effect relationship. I honestly don’t see it, I don’t see how few civilians dead in Moscow, Taganrog or wherever else will help ensure Ukraine survival. To me is detrimental from multiple point of views, but since you seem to base a lot of your reasoning on this, maybe you can explain it to me.
You’re HURTING Ukraine and victims everywhere by arguing this.
This is your interpretation, which honestly, judging from your understanding skills, doesn’t worry me too much.
Turns out you don’t even have the decency to admit your own misunderstanding, despite it was unequivocally clear from the previous comment. Instead, looking at your history it seems you just have the habit to shout at people (often insulting, with a very bully attitude) and to tell what other people’s opinions are (surprising to see at least a few instances of this in less than 20 comments).
I am blocking you in the meanwhile because I can do without lunatics shouting their hatred online, especially when there is not a gram of rationality in the debate.
You’re drawing a dangerous false equivalency between the invaders and the invaded and because of it, you’re not getting your message across. You may not care, but the rest of the world does, and the others in the thread clearly do feel that people like you complaining about the drone attacks unfairly burdens Ukraine because it limits their options in the face of genocide. They view the drone attacks as necessary, possibly as part of a larger plan to invade Russia, and you’re not adequately explaining why it’s unnecessary and unhelpful.
In principle, you are asking Ukraine to accept genocide rather than do things that, in these circumstances, are normal acts of war – drone attacks on civilians has been a thing for over a decade now and is simply never going to go away no matter how much you want it to – because ultimately, the situation boils down to a choice between launching drone attacks and accepting genocide, and if we accept your way of thinking, we’d have to accept the genocide. Is that really what you want?
Self-defense is a human right and a moral principle that the others stand for that you’re clearly not respecting, yet you speak of principle. Why should your principles prevail over it? Why should innocent people have to die to satisfy you?
I am not drawing any equivalency. There is an enormous, incommensurable quantitative difference between Russia and Ukraine when it comes to civilian attacks. This does not mean that taking a single episode we need to deny the qualitative similarity. This does not make things equal, but I think I could still disapprove Ukraine kidnapping 1 child from Russia even if Russia kidnapped thousands of them from Ukraine. This wouldn’t be making any equivalence.
Regarding the next part, I am not asking Ukraine anything, let alone to accept genocide. Really there is nothing in between “complete surrender” and “attacks on civilians” in your own perspective?
I also don’t think it is necessary to explain why attacking civilians does not help winning a war. This topic was discussed and settled already more than 50 years ago. In case, it would be responsibility of those who feel this kind of attack is necessary to understand how they can help winning the war. My argument is that 1. Civilians are not part of the conflict by definition, therefore there is no military strategical advantage in killing them, and 2. Killing civilians is forbidden by the Geneva convention, which also means that can backfire by making Ukraine lose some of the support from western countries, which possibly means less weapons.
I am also not against drone attacks, nor against attacks on Russian soil, I am against targeting civilians with those. I don’t think the choice is simply between drone attack on civilians and accepting genocide, if you think otherwise I am keen to know why.
The concept of self-defense in this context only applies if you identify the aggressor (Russia) with the whole population, which I don’t. I believe that civilians are not a reasonable military target, and I am honestly flabbergasted that there is a need to discuss something like this is 2023.
I’m sorry but yes, you are drawing a false equivalency between Russia and Ukraine by holding them to the same standards and insisting there is a “qualitative similarity”, and they are not the same. War is inherently unfair and so is life. People and countries, and the situations they are in, are inherently different and to disregard that is to be unjust, and you might not want to hear it, but you really are being unjust by doing that.
Ukraine launching a drone attack on a Moscow airport simply is not the same as Russia invading and committing genocidal acts against a sovereign nation, but you are holding Ukraine to those same standards which you should not be. That’s why the others are upset at you, I think. Ukraine gets the benefit of the doubt and they get leeway because they are trying to save their own people from genocide while Russia does not because it is actively committing genocide against that country.
I think this is what the others were trying to tell you. If we are to judge the situation on principle, and human rights, then we have to judge it on the founding principle of all human rights: self-defense, and you are violating Ukraine’s right of self-defense by insisting it limit its military options, which Russia has proven it can and will exploit and take advantage of to harm Ukraine even more.
Regarding the next part, I am not asking Ukraine anything, let alone to accept genocide. Really there is nothing in between “complete surrender” and “attacks on civilians” in your own perspective?
Yes you are, because the result of what you are asking for, ultimately, boils down to them either committing Act A or accepting death, and in this war among many others, yes, that is exactly what’s happening. You might not have been watching the news, but the rest of us have, and Russia is actively trying to commit genocide against Ukraine. It is obviously a choice between doing everything possible to ensure one’s own survival or accepting imminent death.
That’s probably why you’re inciting anger amongst others as well. You really don’t have the right or the moral authority to unilaterally demand that of other people, and your position requires it. Indeed, it directly implies it, because of how it reduces and oversimplifies very complex and human situations down to such choices.
The others think Ukraine’s existence as a people and a nation supercedes those kinds of considerations anyway, and I quite frankly don’t blame them. I don’t think you’d be willing to tell your family to accept imminent rape and murder from burglars because of your extremist views on gun control, for instance.
I also don’t think it is necessary to explain why attacking civilians does not help winning a war.
Well, in this case, you have to, not only because it is a tactic that has been very effective throughout all of human history, but because it’s what your opponent believes and you’re not adequately addressing their concerns. By refusing to, you refuse to emphasize with the other side, consider things from their perspective and be willing to find connection, and through it find truth. If you’re not even willing to show that basic human courtesy, why wouldn’t they think of you as some morally bankrupt Putin apologist, as you’ve been labeled in this thread… I see at least twice? How is dismissing others’ basic concerns and beliefs going to convince them to accept your opinion? Is that how we should talk to others?
This topic was discussed and settled already more than 50 years ago.
And over the past 70 years, things changed completely. Now we have advanced technology like drones, and cluster munitions, and F-16s, and nuclear weapons. And Ukraine has drones, which countries have been using pretty casually for over a decade without much complaint, proving the old rules about such things anachronistic. And you are proving those old rules are anachronistic by speaking out in defense of a country actively threatening the rest of the world with nuclear annihilation if they try to actively intervene to save Ukraine, and you’re doing it indirectly by condemning Ukraine by using means it was given by the same countries that made the Geneva Conventions and other treaties in the first place, with their blessing to use against Russia to save itself.
You using those conventions to condemn Ukraine is hollow and disingenuous in that light. No one thinks Ukraine using a drone on an airport is a human rights violation. Your claim that it is is really weak.
Humans are the ones who decide what morality is. Morality is not intrinsic to the fabric of spacetime or the universe, it is entirely made up by people, for people’s benefit, and it is in no way beneficial or a meaningful defense of human life to exploit it to finger-wag at an innocent country trying to save itself from genocide and annihilation. And the rest of the world has decided that it is moral for Ukraine to use those drones to do such a thing. The gavel has been swung and not in your favor, I fear.
I am also not against drone attacks, nor against attacks on Russian soil, I am against targeting civilians with those. I don’t think the choice is simply between drone attack on civilians and accepting genocide, if you think otherwise I am keen to know why.
Then you clearly haven’t been paying attention, because that is what has been happening. We know it is a hard choice because Russia has threatened the rest of the planet with nuclear annihilation if they do not allow Russia to actively take over a sovereign nation and commit genocide against its people. That’s how we know. Russia lost any benefit of the doubt or meaningful consideration it would have otherwise had because of its actions, and if we are to make a fair and just world, you and people like you must accept that. We judge and dictate such things based on people’s actions, and that might not be fair to you, but it’s just how life is. And quite honestly, how it ought to be. Not all people are the same nor should they be treated as they are.
The concept of self-defense in this context only applies if you identify the aggressor (Russia) with the whole population, which I don’t.
Well, the others here do, and they’re quite correct to do so, as all of the protesters are already jailed or fled. The only ones left are the supporters of the war, and quite frankly, the Russian people themselves have brought it upon themselves by not accepting their moral responsibility to unite and overthrowing an obvious tyrannical government regardless of the odds. The Russian people are not and never will be innocent in this case.
Arguing whether they have moral culpability in this is meaningless anyway because you would just as quickly condemn the Russian people for trying to violently overthrow their own government to stop a nuclear war, and you’d come at us with the same tired, meaningless, anachronistic and quite frankly superflous arguments.
You can use “I don’t care about the circumstances, it’s still wrong” to stop anyone from doing anything and thus enable aggressors who don’t care to do whatever it is they want. In fact, the result of your stance in all cases is that innocent people get trampled upon by their oppressors because of the act of you criticizing their approach.
You’re really being immoral here and I can’t decide if that’s intentional or not.
I’m sorry but yes, you are drawing a false equivalency between Russia and Ukraine by holding them to the same standards and insisting there is a “qualitative similarity”, and they are not the same.
How holding to the same standards is making an equivalency? By which definition…?
is a “qualitative similarity”, and they are not the same
How, taking a single episode, there is no qualitative similarity? How a building in Moscow (a civilian one - not necessarily this one) is different from one in Kyiv or Lviv? How the Vinnytsia missile in the park is different from the missile in Taganrog?
and the situations they are in, are inherently different and to disregard that is to be unjust, and you might not want to hear it, but you really are being unjust by doing that.
Yeah, indeed it is, but this doesn’t mean that a missile on a building is a missile on a building. Even a person shot is the same thing, but of course I don’t consider a Russian invading being killed the same as an Ukrainian defending being killed, similarly to how I don’t consider a fascist killed in 1945 the same as a partisan killed. The difference is that when you are killing people who are outside the conflict, the nuanced difference of the role that each plays in the context is lost. This is my opinion, and I don’t think that being born/living in a country that is invading another makes you less of an innocent than living in a country which is being invaded.
Ukraine launching a drone attack on a Moscow airport simply is not the same as Russia invading and committing genocidal acts against a sovereign nation
Of course is not the same, as this was not implied anywhere. Also, it is not Moscow airport (I explicitly mentioned that I would actually support attacks on infrastructure).
That’s why the others are upset at you, I think
I think that’s because most of people are trying harder to find an enemy to disagree with than actually reading and understanding other people ideas. This is not surprising, is the regular war propaganda result.
then we have to judge it on the founding principle of all human rights: self-defense, and you are violating Ukraine’s right of self-defense by insisting it limit its military options, which Russia has proven it can and will exploit and take advantage of to harm Ukraine even more.
You are being dishonest here. Not attacking civilians objectives, i.e. not attacking people who are outside the conflict by definition, is not limiting military options. It has nothing to do with self-defense, unless you really want to claim that the random civilian is a threat - by existing - to Ukraine. I feel this is a crucial point of disagreement that needs to be solved, so let me be clear: I think that any military target, outside or inside Russia, that can help win the war is a fair and justifiable target to attack. I think that civilian targets, that by definition are not involved in the war, are not. Do you disagree? If that’s the case, you need to explain to me how that is helping winning the war and also why you think the Geneva convention is wrong.
Yes you are, because the result of what you are asking for, ultimately, boils down to them either committing Act A or accepting death, and in this war among many others, yes, that is exactly what’s happening.
No, I think you are creating a false dichotomy to help your argument. I think (and hope) Ukraine can win the war without attacking civilian objectives. So far I still need to understand from you why do you think this is instead necessary, and the alternative of not doing this is to surrender.
You might not have been watching the news, but the rest of us have, and Russia is actively trying to commit genocide against Ukraine.
I appreciate the attempt to patronize, but as I said in another comment, my fiance’ is Ukrainian and her whole family is there. I am well aware of what’s happening.
It is obviously a choice between doing everything possible to ensure one’s own survival or accepting imminent death.
I repeat that this is a false reasoning. If Ukraine tomorrow started dissecting children it would be up to you to demonstrate that this is necessary for survival, as I wouldn’t morally justify. I took an extreme example intentionally to convey the point, but the idea is the same. You are accepting by default that any action is justified a-priori, I think instead that defending yourself is absolutely your right, but this does not automatically removes any restriction to what you can (morally) do. Specifically, I think that upholding the Geneva convention is still a reasonable constraint, even when Russia is constantly violating it.
I don’t think you’d be willing to tell your family to accept imminent rape and murder from burglars because of your extremist views on gun control, for instance.
This is again the result of the flawed dichotomy, it’s in no way a representation of my stance.
Well, in this case, you have to, not only because it is a tactic that has been very effective throughout all of human history, but because it’s what your opponent believes and you’re not adequately addressing their concerns.
Is it? I thought that World War II was a good enough example of how that doesn’t work. And isn’t this very same war an example of that? Did Ukrainian people surrender once they were attacked or they united in the face of the enemy? Could you make some example of how that’s an effective tactic and why this effectiveness should prevail over the common principle of not doing, stated in the Geneva convention?
in this case, you have to […] By refusing to
Thankfully I did that too, suggesting two possible arguments for that. I see you completely ignored that though, I guess it was more important debating the possibility of developing connections.
And over the past 70 years, things changed completely. Now we have advanced technology like drones, and cluster munitions, and F-16s, and nuclear weapons.
The advancement of weapons if anything should enable the possibility to carry out war in a more precise way, with less “collateral damage”. I don’t know why I feel that your argument is instead the opposite?
and you’re doing it indirectly by condemning Ukraine by using means it was given by the same countries that made the Geneva Conventions and other treaties in the first place, with their blessing to use against Russia to save itself.
Eh? There is nothing wrong with using drones to attack. Why you are mixing tools and targets? Let me be clear. Do you think the principles stated in the Geneva convention are wrong and outdated? Do you think that people not involved, or not anymore involved, in a conflict should not be treated humanly and constitute targets for attacks? I would like at this point for you to say it clearly, because there is no need to beat around the bush. I think that is a right principle, disregard the modern weapons we might have, and I think it is still right to apply it today.
to condemn Ukraine
I did not “condemn” Ukraine. I raised concerns about the people celebrating this as a victory. Again, you are projecting on me a boxed set of opinions that are easier to attack for you.
And the rest of the world has decided that it is moral for Ukraine to use those drones to do such a thing. The gavel has been swung and not in your favor, I fear.
And…? Who is “the world” and who “ruled” already? And why would it matter for what I think? The very same fact we are having this conversation is proof that this is not so clear cut.
Then you clearly haven’t been paying attention, because that is what has been happening.
You keep using these sentences that somehow are supposed to be self-evident. I mean, no. You have to support your claim that if you don’t attack civilians you have the nuclear annihilation and the genocide can’t be stopped. You can’t simply cut any part where you need to support your claims with “you haven’t been watching news”, “you haven’t been paying attention” and the like.
Russia lost any benefit of the doubt or meaningful consideration it would have otherwise had because of its actions, and if we are to make a fair and just world, you and people like you must accept that.
What does this have to do with ANYTHING? What is “Russia” in your sentence? The government? The country? The entire population? Should I go and shoot to my Russian colleague living in Portugal because he is making a genocide? Rather than grand abstract sentences I would appreciate more clarity.
How holding to the same standards is making an equivalency? By which definition?
It’s pretty intrinsic that you can’t hold different things to the same standards. You don’t treat apples and bananas the same despite the fact that they are both fruit. Just like you don’t hold a bully and a victim to the same standards even though they’re both human.
We judge people not based on what species they’re in but by the content of their character as displayed through their actions, and for good reason. This is why we do not hold Ukraine to the same standards we hold Russia toward, because they are playing fundamentally different roles, and that is what matters, not what species they’re in. Treating people differently based on their actions is by definition where someone’s humanity comes from. Where justice comes from. That’s what justice means. Not being born into homo sapiens sapiens. That’s reductive and overly simplistic.
How, taking a single episode, there is no qualitative similarity?
Because Russia is the invader and Ukraine is the victim.
Yeah, indeed it is, but this doesn’t mean that a missile on a building is a missile on a building.
Yes it actually does, because there is a mountain of detail, context, and consideration you’re purposefully leaving out to dishonestly frame Ukraine’s actions as a negative and the more you speak, the more it comes off as intentional on your part. War is war and it may not be pretty or palatable to you, but it is a fundamental part of not only the human experience but life in general, and those distinctions matter to us. That’s why people don’t bat an eye when a Russian airport is attacked by a drone but do when a Ukrainian city is leveled into dust.
That’s what you’re missing – we judge the morality of situations based on actions and on the context of those actions, among many other factors. We don’t judge them solely by an arbitrary set of commandments with no real connection with or basis in the reality of a situation devoid of context or meaning. That’s just not how life works.
I repeat that this is a false reasoning.
I repeat that it is perfectly valid and in keeping with the reality of what we have witnessed over the past year and a half.
If Ukraine tomorrow started dissecting children it would be up to you to demonstrate that this is necessary for survival, as I wouldn’t morally justify.
And if we felt it was, then we would. Others have already categorically explained to you why a drone strike on an airport is a common act of war and why an airport is an important military target, and how and why Ukraine was even given drones in the first place, but it’s clear you’re just ignoring them because you feel angry, and your anger is directed at the wrong target. Ukraine is exercising its fundamental right to self-defense and protecting its own people at any cost, which they have the categorical right to do, and no one else disagrees with that but you.
Of course is not the same, as this was not implied anywhere. Also, it is not Moscow airport (I explicitly mentioned that I would actually support attacks on infrastructure).
Well, let’s read the article:
Russian officials said three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow early on July 30, injuring a security guard and forcing the temporary suspension of traffic at Vnukovo airport, one of four major facilities serving the capital.
Russia’s Defense Ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack” and claimed that one drone had been shot down and two others jammed, leading them to crash into Moscow’s prestigious Moskva-Citi business complex.
I don’t even think you read the article. I’m not sure most people here did… the whole incident was an accident and those drones were intended for the airport, but crashed into another building, rendering the basis of your complaint moot.
And honestly, that, and this:
I think that’s because most of people are trying harder to find an enemy to disagree with than actually reading and understanding other people ideas. This is not surprising, is the regular war propaganda result.
Makes it pretty clear you’re arguing in bad faith. What propaganda? Do you categorically deny what Russia has done over the past two years? Do you deny that they wrongly invaded a sovereign nation, committed brutal human rights violations against its victims, kidnapped hundreds of thousands of children, purposefully targeted and executed citizens in the street, leveled entire cities, committed mass rape against thousands of Ukrainian women, destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest dams leading to trillions of dollars in economic damage, took over a nuclear power plant and set it to blow, and threatened other countries with nuclear war if they tried to stop them?
I think it’s pretty clear the others were right to accuse you of arguing in bad faith with the specific purpose of undermining Ukraine. It’s strange that you are condemning Ukraine’s actions on deontological grounds, categorically rejecting attacks on civilians while ignoring Russia’s atrocities and even implying it’s just propaganda – and that line in and of itself is often a dog-whistle for those on the right wing who support Russia and condemn Ukraine.
I don’t think we even need to continue. You are very sus and I don’t think you’re a legitimate user. I think you’re here astroturfing to defend Russia.
You don’t treat apples and bananas the same despite the fact that they are both fruit.
And yet you can say that each one of them can be rotten, or spoiled, or ripen (or not), etc. Not sure what your point is. Also it seems you are trying to make an argument that two different agents cannot do comparable actions, which for me is completely absurd.
This is why we do not hold Ukraine to the same standards we hold Russia toward
We are talking the lowest possible standard: the war crime standard. We are not talking about wearing white gloves.
Because Russia is the invader and Ukraine is the victim.
This is not a valid argument, from my point of view. Being invaded does not automatically guarantee you the (moral) right to do absolutely anything, without restrictions to the population of the invading country.
That’s why people don’t bat an eye when a Russian airport is attacked by a drone but do when a Ukrainian city is leveled into dust
Again dishonesty. The reason for that is that one is an offensive action, the other is a defensive action. This has nothing to do with attacking people who are outside the conflict.
I don’t even think you read the article. I’m not sure most people here did… the whole incident was an accident and those drones were intended for the airport, but crashed into another building, rendering the basis of your complaint moot.
So, the drone was meant for the airport (according to Russian sources, which apparently now we trust), and reached a building. What’s the big problem here. Also, who cares about this particular episode, it’s a fucking empty office. I am talking about the whole principle of people cheering that a random building got attacked as a success on itself. Not “a failed attack on an airport”. I am talking about the whole point that some people -like you- see it acceptable to do attacks on civilians, because Ukraine is defending itself, in general, not this episode (which is unclear, was the office a target, was it not, etc.) in particular.
What propaganda? Do you categorically deny what Russia has done over the past two years?
To make an example of propaganda, the one that pushes for collective responsibility. You can see many examples in this very same thread. It’s a common war propaganda strategy where people are made guilty by association, to completely dehumanize the enemy, and by enemy I mean everyone, innocent people included. I totally understand it from Ukrainian side, because this is often needed to unite the population, but this doesn’t make it reasonable, in my opinion.
Do you categorically deny what Russia has done over the past two years?
You need to be really in bad faith even suggesting that.
I don’t think we even need to continue. You are very sus and I don’t think you’re a legitimate user. I think you’re here astroturfing to defend Russia.
Ta-da. Russian bot.
I mean, you build your own imaginary arguments, then you use it to build a base for your own conclusions. What can I say, if this is not the result of the propaganda I don’t know what is, where in less than 10 comments we go from “war crimes are bad” to “you are a russian bot that is used to condemn Ukraine”.
I asked 2 questions, which are the core of the discussion here, and you dodged them, because having a fucking conversation on topic is too hard, better to talk about made-up arguments and ad hominem. I repeat them for your benefit:
I think that any military target, outside or inside Russia, that can help win the war is a fair and justifiable target to attack. I think that civilian targets, that by definition are not involved in the war, are not. Do you disagree?
Do you think the principles stated in the Geneva convention are wrong and outdated?Do you think that people not involved, or not anymore involved, in a conflict should not be treated humanly and constitute targets for attacks?
[bonus] You are accepting by default that any action is justified a-priori, I think instead that defending yourself is absolutely your right, but this does not automatically removes any restriction to what you can (morally) do. Specifically, I think that upholding the Geneva convention is still a reasonable constraint, even when Russia is constantly violating it. Do you disagree?
That’s it, this is all what this conversation should be about.
If you want to simply make up arguments, go on. If you want to actually attempt to have an actual conversation without resorting to cheap rethoric, these are the questions that you should answer so we can actually confront other point of view. You are surgically dodging these very same points for a while now.
That’s a very childish stance, it’s the same logic as “but he hit me first”. Because by that logic undivided Jammu and Kashmir is wholly Indian as it was invaded twice(several times but mostly ended in stalemates) and land was seized through military conquest. Theoretically it would justify Indian attrocities on civilians but the western community never sees it that way ( nor should it)
I don’t care if it’s childish or not, it’s true, and your consistency and integrity matter whether you like it or not. “He hit me first” is the most important factor in these calculations because circumstances are what makes us human, and callously dismissing them in the name of a perverse way of thinking that only leads to disaster to victims and enables abusers like Russia is, to put it mildly, what some dumbass Karen would do when she’s tired of dealing with her kid fighting at school every day and doesn’t actually give a shit about her own kid’s well-being.
You sound like some tired and angry soccer mom who never wanted to have kids in the first place and is only thinking about their cats and wine.
Ok, then let me ask you a bit more philosophical question. Is it okay to execute a murderer? Do you truly belive in the concept of " an eye for an eye"? Similarly do you think being wronged justifies you abandoning your morality?
Who the fuck are you to dictate to me what my morality is?
Do you not get that other people think differently than you and that we don’t view moraity as purity? That we understand that morality is entirely different from and means more than what you think it does?
Here, let me fix that for you:
Similarly do you think being wronged justifies you abandoning your morality? pride?
Because that is what morality is for you: nothing but pride, whereas people like me care about reducing suffering in the world and a better outcome for everyone.
No one here is trying to write a treatise on how nations should interact. India is it’s own story, don’t muddle waters by slinging random and unrelated “but-what-abouts” into the discussion.
“But he hit me first” is considered childish because children are supposed to go to adults with problems like that rather attempt to resolve conflicts themselves through violence. In this situation there it’s no analog to adults who can step in and resolve the situation, so your analogy is a bad one. People have a right to defend themselves using measures proportional to what’s used against them, and thanks to Russian’s actions do far, there’s basically no response at Ukraine’s disposal that would be disproportionate.
I’ll never put invader and invaded on the same plate, ever. I find dangerous to even suggest it. A war is not fair and it’s not pretty by definition, Russia started it and can stop it at any moment. Enough said.
Russia can stop it. Not the russian people. No side, ever, should be allowed to target civillians. It is not a random bakers fault a russian nazi bombs a building. The moment Ukraine targets civillian buildings they should lose all international support.
Russia’s Defense Ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack” and claimed that one drone had been shot down and two others jammed, leading them to crash into Moscow’s prestigious Moskva-Citi business complex.
Russia’s Defense Ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack” and claimed that one drone had been shot down and two others jammed, leading them to crash into Moscow’s prestigious Moskva-Citi business complex.
Good point. I suppose my point still stands in terms of how people welcome such events, rather than the events themselves. A similar statement could be done for the missile in Taganrog few days ago.
Assuming they were not the intended targets, it still seems that a good chunk of the people participating in the discourse justifies this type of attacks anyway.
Edit: I am keen on hearing the point of views of those who downvote. I am trying to move the conversation forward specifically to hear different perspectives.
I don’t think people want to have a conversation about hypothetical opinions about hypothetical events, I would rather discuss the facts as we know them.
Literally the comment I responded to was making a generic (abstract) statement, so I’d say that you are well within your rights to have the conversations you want, but so are others.
My response to this argument is that you’re saying we can laugh and cheer as teenagers are pushed into the exploding woodchipper, but the instant someone wearing a suit gets dirt on them everyone needs to stop and reflect on their actions.
I don’t see a danger of Ukraine reaching the level of Russia when it comes to war crimes, we haven’t seen anything close to an izium on the Ukrainian side, and even if we had, it’s a defensive war.
If Ukraine wants to drone strike red square, more power to them, point me at their gofundme.
You are arguing a complete strawman, though, as I am not saying any of that.
My argument is that I think attacks on civilians are generally wrong. This is also why war crimes are defined based on what they are, not the context or the motivation behind them. Russian war crimes are appaling, but this - in my opinion - does not justify attacks on Russian civilians. Nobody also talked about same level or any other comparison, only you. I am not even putting on the same level Izyum and a glass office in Moscow, I am discussing the general principle.
The problem is that war propaganda pushes a principle that I simply don’t agree with, which is collective responsibility, from which derives the fact that killing a Russian civilian is not wrong or not as wrong as killing an Ukrainian civilian, because if you hold a Russian passport, automatically you are guilty of genocide.
I don’t understand what is hard or complex or debatable about saying that killing civilians is wrong.
The problem is that war propaganda pushes a principle that I simply don’t agree with, which is collective responsibility, from which derives the fact that killing a Russian civilian is not wrong or not as wrong as killing an Ukrainian civilian, because if you hold a Russian passport, automatically you are guilty of genocide.
Either Russian conscripts are all evil monsters who willingly want to invade another country, in which case we should be able to do whatever we like to them, or they’re teenagers being forced into a fight against their will (they are conscripts under pain of imprisonment).
I’m willing to give the benefit of nuance to the mobiks, they might be doing horrible things, but it’s not like they chose to take a road trip to Bakhmut, but then I think the rich Russians working in cities to keep the machine running deserve the same nuance.
You can place the limit of personal freedom where you subjectively think it is. Are you free to refuse to participate in a war? In my opinion, generally yes, even if the price to pay is high (jail, retaliation, death). For someone the price to pay might be an argument to say that you are not free, and I think both positions are potentially valid, even though I think nobody can ultimately force you to actually squeeze the trigger.
This said, conscripts have absolutely nothing to do with this discussions, as I consider them part of the military, not civilians (which is what my whole comment was about).
Also, “do what we want with them” is also incorrect, as you can’t do certain things even to enemy soldier, if you subscribe to principles stated in the Geneva convention. And to prevent any objections, I am well aware that Russian have done some unspeakable war crimes even in relation to this (such as the beheadings etc.).
Now, if you start extending the responsibility until those who “keep the machine going” you can reach basically any person on the planet, considering the way global economies are connected. I don’t think this makes civilians a fair target though.
you’re saying we can laugh and cheer as teenagers are pushed into the exploding woodchipper
What are you on about? No one’s advocating for that.
the instant someone wearing a suit gets dirt on them everyone needs to stop and reflect on their actions.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
don’t see a danger of Ukraine reaching the level of Russia when it comes to war crimes
Then you are an idiot. The clue is in the name “War Crimes”, they are illegal actions no one should be taking. Neither side should be engaging in war crimes, now, we can’t do anything about Russia because it’s Russia, but we can encourage Ukraine not to do it and we should encourage Ukraine not to do it.
If Ukraine wants to drone strike red square, more power to them
But they didn’t hit that did they, they hit random office buildings. Target in civilians was the tactic in world War 2, and it didn’t work. It just galvanises a population against you.
There has never been an airport without military value. Because of this, they are often the first assets that are attacked or seized when besieging a city.
Its likely a reference to Russian propaganda that the Kyiv government is populated with drugged-up nazis as justification for their unprovoked war of aggression.
Yeah, looking at comments seems that it might not have been the target (but others also say that it was because was the property of some ministry). Either way, I guess that we could have the discussion about what is or is not acceptable assuming that it was the target, just to have an hipotetical example.
The only people who know why the target was chosen are probably not hanging out on Lemmy.
But really there’s no reason whatsoever to put restrictions on the smaller weaker country who is being invaded. War is hell. Russian civilians can rise up against Putin if they don’t feel safe in their own country. 100% of this is on Putin.
I disagree. I think that respecting the Geneva convention is a reasonable restriction to impose, and it also does not hinder in any way the ability to win the war, as it specifically protects only people who do not participate in the war.
A: But really there’s no reason whatsoever to put restrictions on the smaller weaker country who is being invaded. War is hell.
B: I think there are good reasons to impose the restriction of the Geneva convention on Ukraine, even if is being invaded.
It’s an abstract consideration of the moral legitimacy of an invaded country to act without any restriction (according to OC) or not (according to me). Whether it did break or not the rules of Geneva convention is a completely separate debate. Here the topic is: is it reasonable or not to expect Ukraine, as invaded country, to act within the limits of the Geneva convention?
The Geneva convention is a set of rules created so that during a war actions aren’t taken by either side. They only work if they are followed by both. One side has been targeting civilians since day 1. That rule has been broken so is no longer a concern.
If a nation is using chemical weapons, for example, just yelling about the rules doesn’t change anything. You need to adapt to the new rules for that war, whatever they are. You don’t have the option to be polite in war.
This is a new perspective I was not aware of. Why would they work only if followed by both sides, considering that affect people outside the conflict and do not grant any military advantages? I don’t think it works like this that once a rule is broken automatically “is no longer a concern”.
If a nation is using chemical weapons
Your example doesn’t fit, because you specifically picked one that -while constituting possibly a banned weapon- does grant you military advantages. I am talking about thinks like killing war prisoners, killing or attacking civilians etc., which are the subject of the Geneva convention, AFAIK.
Attacking some civilian targets does have a strategic advantage. First, attacking factories can deny resources. Second, making a population tired and stressed can lead to issues at home that need to be taken care of, which takes manpower and resources. I’m not condoning it, but it does create some strategic value. That’s what the bombings of cities were for during WWII. It was largely about destroying war infrastructure (with hard to aim weapons and poor compared to modern intelligence).
War prisoners also take resources to care for. If they’re dead, they don’t. It’s potentially advantageous to not have them. Again, not condoning it, just stating reality.
The Geneva convention covers many things. It’s a set of guidelines to ensure war doesn’t escalate. There’s some things that are banned just so it’s not confused as another form of attack and things spiral. It only works if both sides of a war agree on the rules though, otherwise why is one side not allowed to use tools their enemy is using?
I think this is an interesting arguments. I would probably debate whether economic (marginal) damages constitute a strategic advantage, but in general I agree that it’s true. Injured people, manpower loss etc. is an overall damage. Maybe I would rephrase in that they don’t translate into immediate military gains, and there are of course negative sides as well (like the loss of image which I think is crucial for Ukraine in particular). I still feel that the benefits mentioned are not that valuable to violate the overall principles, especially because any violation is a step further towards abandoning those principles at all, which I don’t think is anyone interests (not that Russia is respecting any of those anyway, but this can have effects on other wars as well, potentially).
It’s a principle in warfare, and particularly warfare since WWI, that whatever you do in war, can be done TO you with no repercussions. It is why the US has a standing stated policy that they will nuke anyone using an ABC (atomic, biological, chemical) weapon. If you attack with a weapon of mass destruction the reserves the right to nuke you.
Same principle. If you attack civilians you just authorized attacks on YOUR civilians . If you attack non-military targets you just authorized attacks on your non-military targets.
All that said, any airport is a military target in time of war.
The US Naval Handbook (1995) states: Some obligations under the law of armed conflict are reciprocal in that they are binding on the parties only so long as both sides continue to comply with them. A major violation by one side will release the other side from all further duty to abide by that obligation.
“Some” obligations may perfectly work this way . Not sure I would take a military handbook as a reference for international right (especially from one of the countries that doesn’t even recognize the ICC), but either way, I strongly doubt the meaning is “if they start torturing their prisoners, we should torture ours” or mirroring other war crimes. I am no expert, but I think that the motivation “the enemy did it before us” wouldn’t hold much in the ICC.
You’ve never heard of people responding to rule breaking with rule breaking of their own? Your assertion that it has no military advantage is flat out wrong, this attack has a military advantage. It brings the fight closer to Putin and requires them to divert forces. It also makes the Russian people more likely to revolt against the war.
I did definitely hear about this, but I don’t think I can say I understand it in all situations. Specifically about this, I quote:
They [conventions] are coming to be regarded less and less as contracts concluded on a basis of reciprocity in the national interests of the parties and more and more as a solemn affirmation of principles respected for their own sake, a series of unconditional engagements on the part of each of the Contracting Parties ’ vis-à-vis ’ the others.
As a commentary to the Article 2 of the 4th Geneva convention.
It brings the fight closer to Putin and requires them to divert forces.
Realistically, Russia seems to be perfectly content in having its own population die. These advantages might be true, but they depend a lot on how Russia reacts to this. As far as Putin is concerned, I am quite sure he has a permanent residence in some bunker somewhere anyway.
It also makes the Russian people more likely to revolt against the war.
I think this is a legitimate opinion, but I think that history showed us over and over that attacked populations tend to unite. I don’t know if you have any particular example in mind.
A war crime is a always a war crime. And the people committing war crimes will always be war criminals. Public opinion doesn’t matter. The fact that certain countries don’t prosecute war criminals doesn’t matter. The fact that certain countries try to legitimize war crimes doesn’t matter. A war crime is always a war crime. And a war criminal will always be a war criminal. It really is that sjmple.
Sometimes in war there is a choice between being a war criminal or being annihilated, though. Also, these choices are made by the elite who aren’t playing by the same rules as everyone else. They can’t be tried for war crimes if they win the war, and that’s all that they care about.
Plus like other commentors said, Russia is the one who made the rules this way.
The enforcement of the rule at a later date will be affected by the outcome of the war. If Ukraine loses the war, who will be held accountable for Putin’s crimes?
The rule will not be enforced, so limiting only the vulnerable, honest side is not a fair application of the rule. It may result in the deaths of many more innocent, vulnerable Ukranians who are the victims in this invasion.
The invader has set the rules with their attacks. Let them suffer the rules they have set.
Karma farming even on Lemmy? Or what is the point of such comments? I am interested about what part I don’t understand, in particular of this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention
But really there’s no reason whatsoever to put restrictions on the smaller weaker country who is being invaded. War is hell. Russian civilians can rise up against Putin if they don’t feel safe in their own country.
I mean, that’s just happening in your head, we hate the Russian government and the subset of the Russian people who support it. Hating some rando for being Russian is still wrong.
and let Russia be the only one committing war crimes by doing that
Anyone that has been following this war properly knows that’s not really true. Donetsk city has been the subject of indiscriminate ukrainian shelling and missiles since the start. These drone attacks against civilians aren’t changing some sort of unbroken streak of not attacking civilians.
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